


Sleeping Dragons Ep 03 - Smiths & Joneses

by Soledad



Series: Sleeping Dragons [4]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Canary Wharf references, F/M, Ianto is still not a fan of the Doctor, Ianto whump, It's not easy to be a Time Lady, Jack is still biased, M/M, More Cardiff police officers, Not All Butterfly People Are Bad, Old habits are hard to break, Pissing off powerful aliens isn't a good idea, Really Weird Aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-26 22:37:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 76,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7592902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenny, the Doctor’s daughter, crashes with her spaceship in Splott. Unfortunately, she’s followed by some aliens she had managed to cross previously. Will the Torchwood Three team be able to save her – and Cardiff – from the wrath of the aliens?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Re: timelines. Yes, I know there are various approaches of dating the individual episodes. I’m following one of the timelines found on LJ, because this is the one serving the purposes of my story best. 
> 
> Besides, this is an AU, so please mark the label and just accept that I’ve moved “The Doctor’s Daughter” a bit further back in time. Also, since in this AU Martha has gone to work for the UNIT base in Cardiff right after leaving the Doctor, she was not present at the events of that episode.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 01**

Doctor Thomas Milligan had the habit to get up in the grey hours of the morning. It was a habit he’d developed while working in Africa for _Doctors Without Borders_. As in his little bush hospital there hadn’t been any electricity – not to mention any other conveniences of modern urban civilization – he’d got used to work from sunrise to sunset; as long as there had been sufficient natural light.

This habit of his proved to be very handy when he – not entirely voluntarily – became a dog owner. Molly, the four-year-old Irish Setter, had very firm ideas about the right hours to go for a walk, and she was an early riser, too. She clearly didn’t see why a change of owners – the previous one having been murdered and mostly eaten by a carnivorous alien – should make her change her daily routine, too.

After all, a dog needed some stability in its life.

Tom didn’t really mind. Sure, getting out of bed at daybreak was not always convenient (especially when he’d had company in the previous night), but if he wanted to be honest, he had to admit that he’d come to cherish these peaceful morning hours in Molly’s company. She was a cheerful creature that loved to run and to play; those were rare hours of normalcy before facing the organized chaos that working for Torchwood meant on nine days out of ten.

His trial period of three months was almost over by now, but he was still living in the safe house in Splott. Well, it wasn’t an _actual_ safe house, not officially, although used as such on occasion. _Had been_ used, to be more accurate, before he’d move in. His co-worker, Andy Davidson, had earned it from an eccentric aunt and had offered him to stay there until he’d find something more permanent.

It took Tom less than a week to realize that working for Torchwood could most inconveniently interfere with such mundane things as looking for a flat of his own. Sure, Rhys Williams, their general support and logistic guy, _had_ offered to help him, but Tom preferred to do such personal tasks himself.

Besides, he _liked_ the house. It was small, true, but more than enough for a single man with a dog and a not-quite-girlfriend who sometimes spent the night. And Molly had a nice place in the back yard, with enough room to move around while Tom was at work – which meant ten to twelve hours on a _good_ day.

Unfortunately, good days were a rare thing at Torchwood. He couldn’t imagine how the old team had managed even the average workload with just five people. There were fourteen of them now, including Angela, who only did freelance work for Torchwood, and even so, they could barely catch up with the demands of monitoring the Rift and dealing with whatever came through it.

Lately, he’d begun to entertain the thought of buying the house from Andy. Or renting it, at the very least; he couldn’t expect to live there for free much longer. It felt like a home – the first one he’d had for a decade – and he hated the thought of moving to a new place. Sure, Splott wasn’t the finest neighbourhood, but he’d seen worse. Much worse.

“What do you think, Molly?” he asked the dog when she came running back to him, with fluttering ears and laughing eyes, holding the rubber ball firmly in her jaws. “Should we ask PC Andy?”

Molly’s ears perked up hearing that name. She loved the ex-constable almost as much as she loved Tom. Could she speak, she’d definitely have voted for staying in the house; not the least because it belonged to Andy and smelled of him in every corner.

Tom smiled and scratched her head between the ears. Molly closed her eyes in pleasure, dropped the ball, her tongue lolled out of her mouth, making her look as if she were grinning, her tail wiggled like a signal flag in delight. She was about to roll onto her back to have her belly rubbed – her new owner had the most _amazing_ hands! – when a high-pitched, whining noise shattered the peace of the early morning, making her jump at least a foot into the air.

Tom was startled, too, and looked around for the source of the strange noise. It didn’t take long to spot something like a glowing ball come down from the sky in a high arch, touching ground somewhere beyond the house with an earth-shattering impact.

At the same time his mobile phone – his _work phone_ , reserved for Torchwood calls only – began to ring. It was Sally Jacobs, the Rift technician from the night shift.

“We’ve got a Rift spike in Splott,” she told him. “Something came through; something fairly big, according to the readings. An unidentified flying object of some sort; or a meteorite – or perhaps just a piece of space debris.”

“I know,” Tom replied. “I’ve just seen it. It went down some three hundred yards from my current position. Couldn’t it be something falling off from orbit, though? The space around Earth is full of junk, after all: burn-out remnants of rocket fuel tanks, dysfunctional satellites and stuff like that.”

“Jack says it can’t be contemporary,” Sally explained. “We’ve got anomalous temporal readings, so it _must_ have come through the Rift. Can you get to the impact site? The police have been informed, and Jack and Mickey are on their way, but it can’t harm if one of us appears soon enough to keep possible gawkers at bay.”

“Sure,” Tom said, mildly excited by the chance of being the first one at the site,” but I don’t have my kit with me. I was just walking Molly.”

“No problem, there’s always a fully stocked medkit in the SUV, just in case. Thanks, Tom you’re a jewel. Trying to raise Owen at this time of the day would have been a real pain.”

“I try my best,” Tom answered modestly. Then he hung up and looked down at the dog. “Well, Molly, are you ready to investigate your first UFO?”

Molly wiggled with her tail enthusiastically and started off without being told to do so.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Tom didn’t know what he’d expected to find at the impact site but he was quite sure that it hadn’t been _this_. Not a streamlined little spaceship/atmospheric glider/whatever of the size of a double-decker… or, at least, not very much bigger. It was scorched and dented in several places, due to its rather violent landing on the small clearing two streets beyond Andy’s house… or perhaps due to some previous encounter with not-so-friendly fellow space travellers.

Despite that, Tom still found it amazing. An actual, honest, down-to-Earth spaceship crash-landing in his back yard… well, almost. Nothing he’d seen at Torchwood in nearly three months came close to this, and _that_ was saying a lot.

“ _Look_ at this, Molly!” he murmured, his excitement growing. “Is it not amazing? It’s like having a guest part in _Star Trek_!”

As if answering him, Molly suddenly started barking; not in a hostile manner, though, more like as if she were every bit as excited as _he_ felt. Following the direction in which the dog was looking, he saw a small door open on the side of the ship – with some reluctance, as if someone were trying to open it by sheer force. Finally, the door did swing open, and a girl jumped out, feathering down the impact of her landing expertly with bent knees.

Tom stared at her with his mouth literally hanging open. She couldn’t be much older than seventeen; eighteen at most, and she looked completely human, with that pale, heart-shaped face, long, straight blond hair that was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and wide, green-blue eyes that seemed too old and knowing in that sweet, innocent, child-like face. Just as the futuristic weapon hanging from her belt seemed to deny her apparent youth.

She was wearing nondescript back trousers, a tan-coloured tee shirt and a worn leather jacket with more pockets than Tom had ever seen on a single piece of clothing. Her clothes were casual, clearly meant to be practical and comfortable before everything else, but she still managed to look good in them.

She looked around, assessing her situation with the experienced eyes of a soldier. Spotting Tom, she gave him the once-over – not in the manner a free-spirited girl would check out a handsome bloke, though. She was clearly estimating the strengths and weaknesses of a potential adversary.

Deciding that Tom represented no immediate threat – although _how_ she’d come to that conclusion remained a mystery – she stepped forward and extended her hand with a wide, charming grin.

“Hi, I’m Jenny Smith. Can you tell me where I’ve landed – and, more importantly, _when_?”

“Tom Milligan,” they shook hands; her grip was surprisingly firm. “This is Cardiff, Wales; the area of Splott, to be more accurate. Erm… what do you mean with _when_?”

“Well,” the girl gestured around herself, “based on the architecture here, the anomaly must have transferred me backwards in time by a couple of millennia. The only question is: _how far_ back?”

“This is the year 2008,” Tom told him. “Late summer, actually.”

“Oh, my!” she seemed rather disheartened by that piece of news. “How am I supposed to get back to my own time?”

“Perhaps we’ll be able to help,” Tom said.

“ _You_?” she asked with an adorable frown. “No offence, but how could you possibly help me get home?”

“Well, not _me_ , personally,” Tom allowed, “but perhaps the organization I work for. We have… erm… experience with temporally displaced people.”

Her face suddenly became cold and suspicios. “Are you a Time Agent?” she asked in a clipped military tone.

“Good Lord, no!” Tom laughed, wisely omitting the fact that he was working closely with one. With a former one. Whatever. “I work for Torchwood. We monitor the Rift and take care for people and things that come through.”

“The _Rift_?” she repeated, clearly not having a clue.

“The anomaly you’ve crossed,” Tom explained. “There’s a Rift in space and time running right under the city of Cardiff, and it’s our job to watch it. Not all visitors are as nice as you.”

“Torchwood,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve heard about the Torchwood Institute. It will continue to exist well into the future – _your_ future, I mean. For _me_ , it’s the past. You’re some sort of alien hunters, then?”

Tom laughed and patted Molly’s head who was rubbing her flank against his leg. She always did it when she couldn’t decide whether she liked a new person or not.

“Actually, I’m the team medic. A doctor. I patch them up when they’ve been injured, deal with alien diseases, do the autopsies… that sort of thing.”

Her mood brightened at once, hearing that.

“You’re a doctor? My Dad’s a doctor, too,” she seemed to thaw out towards him considerably. “So, do you think your colleagues from Torchwood can help me getting back to my own time?”

“I don’t know,” Tom gestured at the Torchwood SUV that was turning around the corner with screeching tyres at the same moment. “Why don’t you ask them?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack Harkness and Mickey Smith got out of the SUV and strolled towards the crashed spaceship in their usual superhero-wannabe style, made particularly impressive by the heroic billowing of Jack’s greatcoat. Doctor Trevor Howard, Torchwood’s Geek Number Two ( also known as the right-hand man of Toshiko Sato) followed them in a much more subdued manner, alien-enhanced scanner on the ready in his hand. Ex-SOCO scientist Sara Lloyd closed the formation, wearing the usual paper coverall to secure the impact site if necessary. She handed Tom a fully stocked medkit on her way.

“I was running an experiment when the call came in,” she explained, “and thought I’d take a look at the site. “What do we have?”

“Crash-landed spaceship with teenaged pilot,” Tom summarized for her.

He saw with a certain degree of trepidation how the girl – Jenny – began to levitate towards Captain Harkness unerringly. However, this time it wasn’t the usual _fifty-first-century-pheromones-make-everyone-dizzy_ effect. It reminded him more of the child soldiers in Africa; how they instinctively turned to their commanding officers for guidance, reassurance and orders. For some reason, Jenny seemed to do the same, and Tom wasn’t sure he liked it.

Had the girl been a child soldier, too, somewhere in the far future, thousands of years from now? Had she been on a suicidal mission with that neat little spaceship of hers, on her way to destroy another ship, or a colony, or perhaps an entire planet, when the Rift caught her? Who could tell what a single soldier of that far-away time would be capable of?

Tom had seen enough child soldiers to know that trusting the innocent looks of such a young girl would be a fatal mistake. Children who had been trained to kill from an obscenely young age were a hundred times crueller and more dangerous than any adult soldier; because everything that might stop an adult from doing something truly gruesome had long been destroyed in them. Which was why rehabilitation was so hard and yielded so little results.

“Be careful, Jack,” he said in a low voice.

Jack gave him a barely perceptive nod, singalling his understanding – the man was loud and often obnoxious but not a fool – then stepped forth to address the girl.

“Welcome to Cardiff and the twenty-first century,” he said with one of his trademark thousand megawatt smiles that, however, rarely reached his eyes; not that most people would realize it. “I’m Captain Jack Harkness from Torchwood. Who are you, soldier?”

So he’d picked up the military vibe from the girl, too. No big surprise here. Those captain’s stripes on Jack’s sleeve weren’t for show only. Jack had indeed served in several wars and worked up his way through the ranks. The girl must have instinctively reacted to his natural authority; she saluted him now and gave a crisp, clipped answer that sounded like something she’d been drilled to learn by heart and give whenever asked.

“Generation five thousand soldier primed and in peak physical health, sir…” then she trailed off and shook her head in disgust. “Damn, I really need to break the old habit,” she sighed and extended her hand to Jack. “Sorry for that. I’m Jenny Smith.”

“A remarkably average name for someone who’s clearly not from this planet – _or_ from this time,” Jack commented. “Where are you from, Jenny Smith? And, more importantly, _when_ are you from?”

“Messaline,” the girl replied readily enough. “A planet co-colonized by a mixed group of humans and Hath, in the year 6012, according of what my Dad called the New Byzantine Calendar. For me, it was six years ago.”

“ _Hath_?” Jack repeated with a frown. Clearly, he hadn’t heard of such a species before. 

The girl made a vague gesture. “Oh, you know… half-human, half fish. They need a… an apparatus full of some blue liquid to be able to breathe outside of the water. Funny creatures, really – if they’re not shooting at you.”

Jack shook his head. “Never heard about them.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the girl shrugged. “They won’t come here anyway. Not for several millennia yet… if ever.”

“Speaking of which,” Jack said, “what are _you_ doing here?”

“And flying a starship of Raxacoricofallapatorian design, at that,” Trevor added, eyeing the crashed vessel with a manic gleam in his eyes not even his glasses could fully conceal. “This little darling seems to be the same design as the one that crashed into the Big Ben, back in 2006 – although perhaps a more advanced model.”

“Really?” Jack, who hadn’t been present by that event, asked with interest.

Trevor nodded. “The similarities aren’t that obvious for the naked eye, but I was part of the engineering team that studied the Slitheen ship at Torchwood London. This is definitely Raxacoricofallapatorian design.”

“And so we’ve reached another interesting question,” Jack said. “How would a human girl from the future come to a contemporary Raxacoricofallapatorian ship?”

“I got it on the planet _Udrani_ , in the _Brineka Cluster_ ,” Jenny explained matter-of-factly. “My old shuttle was destroyed when I helped the local _Itiyri_ to fend off a _Maseeth_ invasion. They found they owed me, so they organized for me a ship I could operate on my own.”

“You’re a hired gun then?” Jack asked with a frown. “Some kind of mercenary? That’s what you do for a living?”

The girl laughed, heartily and delightedly like a child.

“Of course not, silly! I’m just a traveller. I love travelling! There are always planets to save, civilizations to rescue, terrible creatures to defeat… and running. Usually, there’s a lot of running involved. That’s the best part of it!”

“Sounds familiar,” Jack commented with a strangely wistful smile. “So, have you been running from the _Maseeth_ – whatever _those_ are – when you ended up here?”

“No,” the girl replied, suddenly deadly serious. “From the _Xathian Alliance_.”

“Another thing I never heard of,” Mickey commented. “You must have travelled far beyond the well-trodden paths, love.”

The girl gave him a flat look. “Be glad you never ran into them. They’re horrible people,” she answered. “The worst plague that had ever swept across that part of the Universe. In fact, perhaps the worst plague _ever_.”

Jack, Mickey and Trevor exchanged doubtful looks. All three of them had faced Daleks and Cybermen – even both at the same times on occasion – and so they had a hard time to imagine anything that would be worse than _those_.

On the other hand, as Jack liked to say, it was a big universe. Not even he, in all his years as a Time Agent – or as the Doctor’s companion – could have seen all that was out there.

“Why was the _Alliance_ after you?” he asked gently.

The girl sighed. “I happened to run into one of their patrol ships and helped an imprisoned _Shanelan_ to escape. I mean, sure, they’re arrogant bastards, but not even _they_ deserve to be used as the organic processor units of the _Alliance_ ships, right?”

“I’m getting a headache,” Lloyd commented dryly. “You’ve told us about more alien species in the last five minutes than I’ve studied in the last eight _months_ , and I’ve studied a _lot_ of them.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that you people are so clueless,” the girl replied defensively.

“All right,” Jack said hurriedly, before the two women could get into a real fight, “this is not the right time _or_ the right place to update our alien database. I suggest we all return to the Hub and hold a detailed debriefing, with the entire team present.”

“What’s the Hub?” Jenny asked suspiciously.

“Our base,” Jack replied, grinning. “We’re a super secret organization, with a super secret underground base.”

Jenny shot the SUV, parked well within eyesight, a doubtful look.

“Since when is Torchwood a secret organization?” she asked. “ _Everyone_ in my time knows about the Institute. They’ve been heavily involved in space exploration, terraforming projects and the colonization of new planets in the past. They’re part of human history.”

“Well, you’re even further back in the past now, and in _this_ time, Torchwood still is a secret organization,” Jack returned.

“Driving a vehicle with the name of your organization on it, in letters large enough to be seen from orbit doesn’t seem the tactically wisest choice to me,” Jenny commented, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You have an interesting concept of secrecy, Captain.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack was saved from the necessity to give an equally snarky answer – not that he’d actually _have_ one – by their comms coming alive. It was Ianto; having arrived to the Hub at the usual ungodly hour, he wanted a preliminary progress report.

“Object is a crashed spaceship of Raxacoricofallapatorian design,” Jack summarized for him in a clipped tone. “The only passenger is a temporally displaced human girl; she seems unharmed, but Tom will have to take a look at her later, just to be sure.”

“What about the ship?” Ianto asked. “Can we move it from the crash site?”

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “It looks badly banged on the outside; must have taken quite a beating before coming through,” he turned to the girl. “Are your engines still working?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “I might be able to get it flying within the atmosphere, but the space drive got hit by a pulsar cannon; I doubt that I could left the planet with it.”

“You got that, Ianto?” Jack asked.

“Clear as rain,” the Welshman replied. “Just how big _is_ that ship of hers? Would it fit into the hangar where we caught Myfanwy?”

Jack gave the neat little ship a critical look.

“It’s somewhat bigger than a double-decker, but not by much. Yeah, that should work. If we can get the ship into the hangar, Tosh and her fellow geeks can see if they could help fixing the space drive.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Ianto agreed. “Keep me informed and give us a call if you need any help.”

“Will do,” Jack promised; then he looked at Jenny. “Well, Jenny Smith, what about getting your ship out of sight and somewhere where it could be repaired?”

“Sounds good,” she replied brightly. “Shall I engage the perception filter or are people of this time used to seeing spaceships travelling in the atmosphere?”

“You’ve got a perception filter?” Jack asked in surprise.

The girl gave him a droll look. “Well of course I do! I don’t want the bad guys shooting at me all the time,” she explained patiently, as if she were talking to a bunch of very young – and not very bright – children.

“Then, by all means, engage it!” Jack said. “And let us take this baby to the hangar where nobody can stumble over it by accident.”

“I’ll need the coordinates,” she said.

Jack grinned like a maniac. “No, baby; what you need is a co-pilot.”

She gave him a doubtful look. “You can pilot a spaceship of Raxacoricofallapatorian design?”

“I can pilot any spaceship, no matter what design, if it has been constructed before the fifty-first century,” Jack told him, way too content with himself.

She stared at him with wide-eyed awe. “You’re from the future, too? And you’re trapped here?”

“No,” Jack said, “not really trapped. I came voluntarily; and stayed here out of my own free will.”

“Why?” she clearly couldn’t understand why somebody would restrict himself to one planet when the whole Universe stood open for them.

“Because I’ve got important work here to do,” Jack replied. “The twenty-first century is when everything changes; something really big is going to happen, and we have to be ready.”

“ _We_?” she echoed uncertainly.

“The people of Earth,” Jack explained. “Humans. Most of them are still living in happy ignorance, pretending that there’s nothing out there. But you and me, Jenny Smith, we know that’s not true. Torchwood knows a lot about what’s out there, and we’re learning more every day. We must. Because we’re the only ones to prepare the people for what’s coming.”

“But what _is_ it?” she asked. “What’s the terrible thing that’s coming?”

“We don’t know; not yet,” Jack replied. “All I know is that my predecessor looked into the future, and what he saw made him kill his entire team _and_ himself at the end. That’s why we must prepare for all possibilities.”

“Can you do it?” the girl’s voice was small, barely audible. “Can you make people ready?”

“I’m not sure,” Jack answered after a lengthy pause. “But I’ve got to try.”

“Perhaps I can help,” she offered. “Perhaps the anomaly – the Rift, as you call it – has brought me here for a purpose. Perhaps I know things _you_ don’t; things that will be important one day.”

“Perhaps,” Jack allowed. “Now, let’s get your ship safely tucked away first. Then we’ll take you to our base, and we can talk.”

He turned to the others. “Mickey, you with us. You’re good with alien tech; you can help us assess the damage.”

Mickey nodded, clearly happy to get a chance to take a closer look at the alien ship. Trevor, on the other hand, looked positively insulted. _He_ was the one with previous experience with Raxacoricofallapatorian design; the one who’d recognized it in the first place. But Captain Harkness was playing favourites again. 

Tom made a mental note to have words with he captain about it – or with Director Jones, if he had to. Just because Trevor used to work for Torchwood One, an organization Captain Harkness still nurtured an irrational hatred for, he had no right to question Trevor’s skills and knowledge. The man was an engineer with a degree in cybernetics, for God’s sake!

“We’ll take the SUV back to the Hub, then,” Lloyd, also not unaware of the slighting Trevor had just suffered, said. “You coming, Tom?”

Tom shook his head. “I have to take Molly home first and prepare his food dispenser for the day. This promises to be one long shift again; I can’t let my poor dog starve. You go; I’ll get in at the usual time.”


	2. Chapter 2

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 02**

By the time the field team returned to the Hub, Ianto had informed himself about what little was to be found in the Archives about the New Byzantine Calendar, Raxacoricofallapatorian technology and an alien species named the _Hath_ – which, quite frankly, wasn’t much. He felt mildly frustrated by such extreme lack of reliable information. He preferred to have as many solid facts at his disposal as possible.

“Unfortunately, we have very little information beyond Jack’s own time,” he explained to Emma, who’d begun her training as junior archivist right after coming back from the honeymoon. Now that Beth Halloran had taken over the tourist office and the greater part of administrative duties, Emma could concentrate on her true job within Torchwood. “He tells me that Time Agents rarely visited their own future, so his knowledge relates to what was considered the past in the fifty-first century.”

“And the colonization of Messaline happened _after_ that?” Emma asked.

“I’m not entirely sure how the New Byzantine Calendar relates to our current one; the data are controversial,” Ianto admitted. “But I think we can safely assume that our visitor comes from a time beyond Jack’s,” he transferred the available technical data to Trevor’s computer. “At least we know quite a bit about Raxacoricofallapatorian technology. That will prove helpful if her ship needs to be repaired.”

“Can we be sure that she’s trustworthy?” Emma asked. “Just because she’s young and pretty and can look at Captain Harkness with big baby eyes…”

Ianto shook his head. “Jack’s not _that_ shallow, Emma; and he’s not a fool, occasional appearances notwithstanding. They’re bringing the girl here; Owen and Tom will give her a thorough physical check, and then we’ll know who – or _what_ – she really is. If she proves to be harmless, _then_ we’ll consider repairing her ship.”

“Ms Lloyd says she looks human,” Emma remarked, closing down the virtual databank they were done searching.

“There are several alien species that _look_ human,” Ianto reminded her. “Looks alone don’t mean they’re not dangerous.”

“Or shape-shifters,” Emma added, remembering the Nostrovite incident with a shudder. Ianto nodded.

“Exactly,” he listened for a moment. “Well, the alarms have just been set off. I think we should go back up and play welcoming committee.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
They reached the main Hub area in time to see Jack and Mickey descend via invisible lift, flanking a slender blonde girl in utilitarian clothes. At the same time, the cog door rolled to the side, too, allowing entrance to Owen, who was arriving last, as was his wont.

Well, ever since Gwen had been fired, that is.

The others were already there, gathering in the main working area, without making the slightest attempt to actually _do_ some work. Most of them were staring at the blonde girl with unveiling curiosity; it wasn’t every day that a human _beyond_ Jack’s time would crash-land in Cardiff. Only Trevor was sitting at his workstation, radiating barely concealed anger.

Ianto suppressed a sigh. He’d already talked to Tom about Trevor having been slighted by Jack – again! – in preference to Mickey, and knew he’d have to call Jack on his behaviour. _Again_. He hated those arguments, as they rarely led to any lasting effect, but he couldn’t allow Jack to keep treating Trevor like a… well, like a second-class member of the team.

Right now, however, he had more pressing issues to deal with. Ianto put on his best receptionist smile and went to greet their visitor.

“Welcome to Torchwood,” he said, extending a hand to her. “I’m Ianto Jones, Director of the Institute. I understand that you may be in need of our assistance?”

She shook his hand enthusiastically. “I hope you’ll be able to help. I’d like to return to my own time. No offence…”

“None taken,” Ianto assured her. “Why don’t you go with Owen and Tom to the medical bay first, though, so that they can give you a thorough check?”

“No need for that,” she replied. “I assure you, I’m in peak physical health.”

“I don’t doubt _that_ ,” Ianto said patiently, “but you may carry germs that could be harmful for us and vice versa, since you come from a completely different environment.”

She dismissed his concerns with a wave of her hand. “Oh, my immune system is capable of dealing with just about anything, really!”

“Perhaps,” Ianto said amiably, “but _ours_ isn’t. So I’d thank you if you’d stop arguing and let our doctors do that medical check, for our own safety.”

His still friendly voice gained a faint edge of command, and to general surprise, the girl accommodated to it, as if a mental switch had been thrown somewhere inside her head.

“Yes, sir,” she answered crisply, and followed the doctors to the medical are without further argument.

Ianto shot Jack a curious look. “That was… odd,” he commented softly.

Jack nodded. “She does have these odd moments. When I introduced myself, she replied in some kind of military jargon… something about being a Generation 5000 soldier.”

“Generation _5000_?” Ianto repeated in shock. “How long can a war possibly be that needs five thousand generations to fight it?”

“I don’t know,” Jack replied, “But she’s definitely on her own now. Some kind of adventurer, I think. She mentioned having to break the old habit of falling back into military jargon, so I assume she isn’t a soldier any longer.”

“That doesn’t make her any less dangerous,” Ianto said. “Tom told me something disturbing on the phone earlier; that she reminded him of the child soldiers he’d seen in Africa. Do you think they’ll still be doing it, thousands of years in the future? Using children as cannon fodder?”

Jack sighed. “I’d like to say no, but I’m afraid human nature will need more than just a few millennia to change profoundly.”

Ianto nodded in glum agreement, not liking the thought at all.

In the next moment, Owen’s yell broke their grim silence. “Oi, Harkness! Teaboy! Get down here, you gotta see _this_!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
They jogged down to the medical bay where Jenny was sitting on the examination table, with only the futuristic version of a sports bra covering her upper body. There were several electrodes attached to her, which she endured with the stoicism of an old soldier. Tom was studying the readouts of the various instruments, while Owen was placing a stethoscope to Jenny’s chest, first on the left, then on the right side.

“What have you got?” Ianto asked.

Owen looked up to them. “Come down here and listen. You gotta hear this for yourself!”

After a moment of hesitation, Ianto jogged down the few steps leading to the sunken medical area and took the stethoscope from the doctor. Then he listened. Heartbeat on the left side… that was to be expected from a human… wait a minute, _another_ heartbeat on the _right_ side?

He stepped back and stared at the girl in shock.

“Two hearts,” he stated tonelessly. The possible implications made him dizzy.

“Exactly,” Owen replied with a grim nod and looked at Jack askance. “Does this mean she’s a…. what do you call a female Time Lord? A Time Lady?”

Jack shrugged. “Beats me. Never met one.”

“She’s not a female Time Lord,” Tosh, having watched the scene from the catwalk, interrupted. “Although she might be a Gallifreyan indeed. There aren’t that many species that look completely human yet have two hearts.”

“Excuse me,” Tom glanced up from his readings, “but what the heck is a Gallifreyan?”

“Gallifrey is the home planet of the Time Lords,” Tosh explained. “Well, it _was_ anyway, as it’s been destroyed in the Time War… it’s a long story, you can look it up in the Archives when you have the time.”

“But if it’s their homeworld, then she _is_ a Time Lord… Time Lady… whatever, isn’t she?” Tom argued.

“No,” Tosh said. “If I understand correctly what the Doctor had once told me, not all Gallifreyans are automatically Time Lords. Being a Time Lord is a special status, reserved for a selected minority. Promising Gallifreyan students could achieve the status of Time Lord via achievement in the Gallifreyan collegiate system, as only properly educated and trained individuals could safely use their powerful technology.”

“Which makes her… what exactly?” Tom asked, vaguely overwhelmed by the info dump Tosh had delivered in a single breath.

“I assume that she’s a Gallifreyan, although I’ll need to take a look at those readings to be sure,” Tosh replied. “That would mean she has the _potential_ to become a Time Lord, but not the means to achieve all the knowledge that actually _makes_ a Time Lord,” she walked down to the medical area to look at the readings. “Hearts beat at one-seventy beats per minute… internal body temperature fifteen degrees Celsius… respiratory bypass system… yep, seems like a Gallifreyan all right.”

Jack shook his head. “No way. She _can’t_ be a Gallifreyan. Now that the Master is hopefully gone for good, the Doctor is the last Time Lord alive.”

After having listened to them with growing confusion, the girl’s ears suddenly perked up in excitement. “You know my Dad?”

Several jaws hit the floor of the Hub simultaneously, rendering the entire Torchwood team speechless for a while.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Your _what_?” Naturally, Jack was the first to regain his ability to speak. 

The girl beamed at him. “The Doctor. My Dad… well, my progenitor anyway; after all, we’ve all come from the machine.”

“From the _what_?” Jack knew he didn’t sound very intelligent, but he was too shocked to try for more coherent questions.

“The Progenation Machine,” she replied as if that were the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps for her, it was. “They process all newcomers and breed a whole platoon from a single tissue sample. Twenty generations, in just one day.”

“You mean this is some sort of cloning?” Owen, more used to futuristic and alien technology than Tom, was starting to understand.

“Not entirely,” Jack said, “although similar. I’ve heard about it. Progenation, like cloning, means reproduction from a single organism.”

“Means one parent is the biological mother _and_ father,” Owen added, for any potential idiots present.

Jack nodded. “Yeah. But instead of producing an exact copy of the tissue donor, progenation machines take a sample of diploid cells, split them into haploids, then recombine them in a different arrangement and grow.”

“Very quickly, too, if they can breed twenty generations in a single day,” Tom commented. “So, unlike cloning, progenation produces offspring with the same genetic material, but apparently a different person.”

“It’s very efficient,” Jenny said proudly. “The machine provides instant mental download of all strategic and military protocols in the process, too.”

“No wonder she has a hard time to break the conditioning,” Jack murmured. “It’s practically encoded in her genes. I bet the Doctor was delighted to have a perfect little killing machine as a daughter.”

Jenny nodded, her brightness fading a little. “He doesn’t like weapons. _Or_ killing. He said we always have a choice to solve problems without killing.”

“Sounds like him all right,” Jack said in fond exasperation.

“Easy for him to preach,” Mickey commented sourly. “He never stays to pick up the pieces, does he?” he looked at Jenny. “Has he left _you_ behind, too?”

The girl shrugged. “It wasn’t his fault. He thought I was dead. Well, I _was_ dead… it took me a day or two to come back.”

“And by then, he was long gone, wasn’t he?” Mickey asked her grimly.

After a moment of hesitation, Jenny nodded, clearly a little dejected.

“I so hoped to find him eventually,” she confessed. “But no luck so far. And now that I’ve been taken from my own time, I guess the chances are like zero.”

“Oh, I won’t be so sure about that,” Jack grinned. “He’s known to return here from time to time to refuel his ship at the Rift. All you need to do is to sit tight and wait for your chance.”

“Yeah, we know how well that worked for _you_ ,” Ianto commented dryly. “How long did you wait for him? A hundred years? Two hundred?”

“Somewhere in-between,” Jack shrugged. “So what? She’s a Gallifreyan. She’s got the time.”

“But what am I gonna do while I wait?” Jenny asked with a frown. “I mean, if we can’ fix my ship and send me back in my own time.”

She looked at Jack instinctively again. Jack smiled.

“I don’t know. What would you _like_ to do?”

“I could help you fight evil creatures,” she offered uncertainly. “I’m a good soldier… well, I _was_ one. Every child of the machine was born with this knowledge, you see. It was our inheritance. It was all we’d known before my Dad arrived. How to fight. And how to die.”

There was something truly frightening in the simplicity of those words, silencing the entire team for a moment. Then Owen cleared his throat.

“Well, yeah, we’re trying to cut down on the dying part here, you know. We’re not much use for the people of Cardiff when dead. Well, most of us ain’t,” he added with a sideway glance at Jack.

Jenny’s expression brightened again. “I know. We always have a choice, don’t we?”

“Most of the time anyway,” Jack replied softly. When there wasn’t any other choice, _he_ was the one doing the dying part; but he was not about to tell the girl that just yet. Who could tell how he was going to react to him being a fixed point of time – if she was truly anything like her father.

“So, can I stay here and help you?” Jenny asked hopefully.

Jack glanced at Ianto, who’d kept his stony-faced silence during the entire conversation. “Well, we can always use more field agents… but it’s Ianto’s decision, of course,” he back-pedalled hurriedly, when the Welshman’s face visibly darkened. “He’s the boss here.”

“How kind of you to remember,” Ianto said flatly. 

It was the tone he only used when extremely furious; temperatures within the Hub suddenly dropped at least ten degrees. Being new to the team, Tom was a bit shocked by Ianto’s cold reaction to the girl and that he’d put such an emphasis on his position – usually, he didn’t stand on protocol when they were among themselves. He made a mental note to ask someone what it was all about – preferably Toshiko or Owen, who knew them the longest.

“She could be a great asset to the team, even if only temporarily,” Jack argued, obviously wanting the girl to stay very much. “She knows lots of species we never heard of, she knows her alien tech by default, she’s a trained soldier, and besides, she’s the…”

“… she’s the Doctor’s daughter, I know,” Ianto finished for him coldly. “Let’s hope she only inherited the genes, no the attitude.”

The silence that followed was positively deafening, making Tom very uncomfortable. This was the first time he’d witness an open confrontation between the two leading men of Torchwood, although he knew, of course, that a little more than a year ago _Jack_ had been the leader of the team. He also knew who the Doctor was – in theory anyway – and that several members of the team used to have close ties to him. He always felt that Ianto – unlike Jack or Toshiko – didn’t have a high opinion of the time-travelling alien, but never before had he seen their boss go ballistic about him.

Typically, it was Toshiko who tried to negotiate between her fellow team leaders. She was second in command, after all, and the friend of both men.

“Jack does have a point, though,” she said gently.

Ianto’s expression softened just a bit by looking at her. “I’ll think about it, Tosh.”

“We can’t hire her officially anyway,” she pressed carefully. “UNIT would do everything in their power to get their hands on her, and they might even be able to forge some legitimate-looking reason. After all, the Doctor used to be their scientific advisor for a couple of years, in several of his incarnations.”

As always, she managed to smooth Ianto’s feathers and to catch his attention for the topic.

“What do you suggest, then?” he asked.

“She can come home with me, for starters,” Tosh offered. “I’ve got the place, and I know more about the Doctor – about his previous self in any case – than all of you. After all, I used to travel with him for two years. I’ve learned enough about Gallifreyan physiology to know what will be safe for her and what won’t – aspirin, to begin with. And we can do girly things together,” she added with a sly grin. “Like taking alien tech apart to see what makes it tick and then put it together again.”

“Oh yes!” Jenny declared happily. “I _love_ girly things! _And_ bananas!”

“ _Bananas_?” Jack echoed, feeling as if he’d been kicked in the guts.

Jenny beamed at him with wide, excited blue-green eyes. “Yeah! Bananas are good! And running!”

“I think we’ve just been given the ultimate proof,” Mickey announced with a huge grin that reached from ear-to-ear, nearly splitting his face in two. “She _is_ the Doctor’s daughter.”

“My Dad likes bananas?” Jenny asked in surprise.

“ _And_ running,” Mickey said, still grinning like an idiot, while Tosh and Jack were nodding in unison.

“Very well,” Ianto said with obvious reluctance. “Let’s try your way, Tosh. I entrust our… _guest_ into your care for the time being. Take her home with you if you will, give her a crash course in twenty-first century customs and get her some clothes, too. We’ll see how we can integrate her if she has to stay for a longer period.”

“Do you have anything particular on your mind?” Tosh asked. Ianto shrugged.

“Updating the alien database would be the most obvious thing. We can never know what might come through the Rift, and I prefer to be prepared for all eventualities. I’d like a copy from her ship’s log, too. The data stored in there could prove valuable in the future. And, of course, a detailed report of the ship itself. We need to stay up-to-date with the development of Raxacoricofallapatorian technology. They have the depressing tendency to show up time and again.”

“Mickey can do that,” Jack suggested.

“Doubtlessly,” Ianto’s voice became frosty again. “However, engineering projects are Trevor’s area of expertise, so I’ll leave this in his capable hands.”

“It’s cool, man,” Mickey said to stop Jack from arguing on his behalf. “I’ve got my schedule full with field work, keeping the two SUVs in a respectable shape, _and_ our little alien zoo in the basement. Unless, of course, you need help,” he added, looking at Trevor.

The engineer grinned. “I’ll holler if I need a hand.” The two of them actually went on well enough, having known each other from Mickey’s brief foray into Torchwood London. If their bosses didn’t fight out little power plays on their backs.

“Right, well,” Tosh said, “we’ll go and get Jenny settled, then. Get her stuff from the ship and take it to my place. We’ll be back in the afternoon – if Trevor can take over half my shift, that is.”

The bespectacled scientist nodded. “Sure; I’ll take a look at that ship when you’re back.”

“No,” Ianto said firmly. “When Tosh’s back, you’ll go home and _rest_. You’ve been here all night already. The ship can wait another day.”

Trevor grinned at him tiredly. “Don’t be such a mother hen, Jonesy. I’m used to work long hours.”

“I know,” Ianto replied, “and I’ll expect you to do so, if needs must be. Right now, though, it’s _not_ necessary. Remember the rule: all team members are supposed to have at least eight free hours a day, unless there’s an emergency; which is _not_ the case now.”

“Yes, Mum,” Trevor grinned and plummeted unceremoniously into the armchair at his workstation. Ianto rolled his eyes.

“Very funny. Emma, can you continue in the Archives without me for a while? I’d like to have a few words with Jack in private. It won’t take long.”

Emma nodded, collected her folders and left fort he Archives, flashing Rhys a brilliant smile on her way out. The afterglow of the honeymoon clearly hadn’t burned out yet. Tosh watched them for a moment with a slightly wistful smile, then she turned to Jenny.

“Well, Jenny, let’s get going. We’ve got a lot to do and just half a day to get it done.” 

She shepherded the girl out of the Hub and towards the parking lot used by all Torchwood employees. Jenny went with her willingly.

“Owen, did you take DNA samples from her?” Ianto asked.

Their chief medic nodded. “Yeah, I guess you want Lloyd to run a test to compare it with the sample from the Doctor’s hand?”

“ _What_?” Jack exclaimed while Ianto was answering to Owen’s question in the positive.

Owen rolled his eyes. “Did you really think I could withstand the temptation? Especially since you were treating that thing as if it had been the Holy Grail?”

“And a good thing you couldn’t,” Ianto said. “Now we can have solid proof whether the girl is who she says she is.”

“Why would she lie?” Tom wondered.

“There could be a number of reasons for that, some of them perfectly innocent,” Ianto replied with a shrug. “But even if Tosh is right and she _is_ a Gallifreyan, that doesn’t make her harmless by default. On the contrary. We’ve all seen what a power-hungry Time Lord can do; even if not all of us can actually remember.”

“The DNA analysis is already running,” Lloyd told him. “I’ll compare the results with the Doctor’s data as soon as it’s finished, but that will take a few days.”

“Look out for possible signs of the cloning process, too,” Ianto instructed her. “Cell degradation, faulty DNA segments… that sort of thing.”

“Progenation,” Jack corrected.

“Whatever,” Ianto answered dismissively. “Just because she’s got two hearts, she could still have been lying through her teeth.”

“Will do,” Lloyd promised and vanished in her lab.

“And _we’re_ gonna make ourselves a little more familiar with Gallifreyan physiology,” Owen said to Tom. “It’s gonna be fun. Oi, Teaboy!” he called after Ianto’s retreating back, “can you send me stuff about it from the Secure Archives to my computer before you start tearing Harkness a new one? I have the feeling that we’re gonna need it.”

“Sure,” Ianto said without looking back.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“So,” Jack said, when they reached the privacy of the office – they had, in unspoken agreement, stopped to mention _whose_ office if was weeks ago; it was simply _the_ office now. “What is this going to be about? The Doctor again?”

“No,” Ianto gestured him to take the chair behind the desk, while he leaned against the edge of the desktop himself; it was an old, familiar position both were more comfortable with that the other way ‘round, which would mirror their actual positions. “Although your reaction to the girl makes me wonder if we should dig out the sorry topic again.”

“How that?” Jack asked with a frown. Ianto sighed.

“You’d have taken her in, no questions asked, without whatever background check we might be able to run on her, based on the vague possibility that she _may_ be related to him. After all that man had done – and, more importantly, had _not_ done – to you, you’d still throw away everything to please him. Why? Why does he have such a hold on you?”

“You don’t need to be jealous,” Jack began, but Ianto interrupted him, sounding slightly insulted.

“I’m not _jealous_ ; give me some credit, will you? I just don’t want you to be hurt again. By him, by his so-called daughter – or both of them. I know you get lonely sometimes,” he added, his voice softening. “We’re just the blink of an eye for you. At least a Time Lord would last a little longer. But he’s poison for you, why can’t you see it?”

“That’s not true,” Jack would have liked to believe his own protests, but they sounded forced, even for him.

“Maybe he was different earlier,” Ianto went on, as if he hadn’t even heard said protests. “I have no reason to question Tosh’s judgement, although Mickey has some unpleasant memories about the previous regeneration, too. But what he’s know – _who_ he’s now – never brought you anything but pain and sorrow.”

Jack didn’t answer to that because really, what could he possibly have said? Ianto was completely, depressingly right about the current Doctor.

“Jenny is not the Doctor,” he finally said.

“No,” Ianto agreed. “But if she’s told us the truth, she’s a combination of the Doctor’s full genetic inheritance. What if she’d inherited his arrogance, his blatant disregard for humans as well? His tendency to mess up things with the noblest intentions, and then leave the pieces for others to pick up?”

“She’s just a girl,” Jack said defensively. “She needs our help.”

“Which she will get, as soon as we can be sure she’s not an impostor,” Ianto replied. “But actually, I wasn’t going to talk to you about her. Or about the Doctor.”

“Oh?” Jack was genuinely surprised. “About what then?”

“Trevor,” Ianto replied curtly. “And the way you treat him. Or should I rather say _mistreat_ him?”

Jack snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I’m not,” Ianto replied, his tone hardening a bit. “When I was… _encouraged_ by Her Majesty to take over Torchwood, I made a promise. To myself, to the three of us who were still there. I promised that I won’t allow the sort of favouritism you were always showing towards Gwen-bloody-Cooper, just because she reminded you that self-centered girl who’d cursed you to live forever, sneak into the team again.”

“Oh, really?” Jack asked with a sneer. “Is that why you sought out all survivors of Canary Wharf and asked them to work for you, first thing right after you’d been made boss?”

“I sought them out because I _knew_ them, and because they had the necessary qualifications,” Ianto’s voice was getting more of an edge. “And considering your more than questionable motivation by hiring both me and Gwen, I don’t think you’d have the right to criticize _my_ search parameters. At least I didn’t hire anyone following my dick.”

“No; you followed your sodding Torchwood One conditioning,” Jack snapped.

“Yes,” Ianto admitted bluntly. “I hired professionals, with the necessary skills and after thorough background checks. And it _worked_! Nobody died in the last eight months, and the Earth didn’t get invaded by hostile aliens – well, aside from The Year That Never Was, but that was hardly _our_ fault, was it?”

“No,” Jack muttered darkly. “It was mine. Had I not jumped the TARDIS mid-travel, we wouldn’t have ended up at the end of the world.”

“Wrong,” Ianto replied sharply. “Had your precious Doctor not tried to leave you behind – _again_! – you wouldn’t _have_ to jump the TARDIS.”

Jack tried to interrupt him, but Ianto silenced him with a quelling look. “Martha told me what happened, so stop trying to find excuses for him. And had he not destroyed the career of Prime Minister Harriet Jones, just because she dared to defend the Earth from an alien invasion, there wouldn’t have been a convenient vacuum of power for Harold Saxon to fill without true competition.”

“You can’t blame the Doctor for everything that went wrong in the last few years on Earth,” Jack said.

“I can try,” Ianto answered dryly. “But mostly, I blame him for the way he treated _you_. I don’t care for his so-called temporal sensitivities; he had no right to treat you as some kind of freak. You didn’t _ask_ to become what you are. And whatever he may think, there’s nothing wrong with it. It makes you the person you’ve become, and I wouldn’t want you any other way. None of us would.”

“A freak,” Jack repeated bitterly. “That’s what they called me, too: the Master, those bitches from Torchwood Cardiff, back in the eighteen-nineties… even Yvonne. ‘The freak of Cardiff’ that was her nickname for me.”

“And _you_ called her ‘that frigid bitch from Headquarters’, so what’s the difference?” Ianto returned. “Mr Howarth often said that you were like two overgrown children in a sandbox; always fighting, always calling each other names… as if you’d been in kindergarten.”

“There’s some truth in _that_ ,” Jack admitted ruefully. He and the Torchwood One director had had some spectacular fights, and neither of them really cared whether or not there had been an audience.

“Bottom line is: whatever ongoing quarrel you had with Yvonne, Trevor had no part in it,” Ianto said. “Neither had I, or any of the other survivors… few as we are. Trevor is an excellent scientist; perhaps not a genius-level intellect, like Tosh, but not far behind, either. And he’s proved himself time and time again.”

“So has Mickey,” Jack said stubbornly. “And he’s good with alien tech.”

Ianto nodded. “I know. That’s why he’s on the retrieval team; because he’s experienced and reliable. But he’s not a scientist. He doesn’t have the advanced background knowledge. Trevor _has_. I won’t allow you to slight him again, just because you’re still holding some old grudge against Torchwood London.”

“You’re siding with them!” Jack sounded like a wounded child.

Ianto shook his head. “I’m not siding with either of you. Don’t try to make me choose; that wouldn’t work. Trevor’s an old friend of mine – and Tosh’s to a certain extent – he doesn’t deserve your contempt.”

“And what am I?” Jack asked quietly.

“You’re very important to me,” Ianto replied gently. “I’m still surprised by realizing _how_ important with each new day. But you must understand that we can’t play favourites at work. That would cause a rift in the team, and we can’t afford that.”

He paused, looking at Jack in concern. “What has brought this inferiority complex forth? It’s not like you to question your place within the team… or in my life.”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. Jenny perhaps. If she’s really his kid…”

“… that won’t change anything,” Ianto interrupted. “She’s just a temporally displaced visitor like all the others. You, though… you’re Captain Jack Harkness, for God’s sake, and no-one can take _that_ from you,” he leaned forward and kissed Jack briefly. “You are and will always be my hero.”

“Some hero,” Jack muttered darkly.

Ianto gave him a playful slap upside the head.

“A faulty one perhaps, but good enough for me,” he said. “Or are you questioning my taste in heroes, Captain my Captain?”

At that, Jack finally smiled. Not the usual wide, white, shit-eating grin, but a small, intimate smile that actually reached his eyes.

“No-one can question your excellent taste, Mr. Jones,” he replied, kissing Ianto back, unhurriedly. “You taste better than any other man I’ve kissed for a long while.”

“And you, Captain Harkness, are incorrigible,” Ianto laughed. “Now, would you stay here and play boss for a while? I need to work with Emma in the Archives; and besides, it’s your turn to do some paperwork again.”

Jack pulled a face. “I _hate_ paperwork.”

“Who doesn’t?” Ianto returned. “Just because I’m more diligent in doing it, that doesn’t mean I’d actually _like_ it.”

“Oh yes, you do,” Jack countered.

“Not enough to do _yours_ as well,” Ianto said. “Plus, I’ve got more than enough waiting for me, down in the Archives. So please, feel free to use the office to do yours.”

“I could do paperwork a lot better when properly caffeinated,” Jack tried to wriggle out of the affair.

“Then I’ll send some coffee your way,” Ianto answered and left.

Jack looked after him petulantly for a moment. Then he sighed and pulled closer the nearest pile of documents, waited to be read and signed, and began to read.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Ten minutes later Beth Halloran closed the tourist office for the usual coffee break and came down to the Hub to operate the coffee machine. Not the huge, old-fashioned, insanely complicated one with all the polished copper tubes and shiny chrome water tank – that was still off-limits to everyone save Ianto himself – but she was _very_ skilled with the small, modern espresso maker.

So, while the older team members still mourned the time when coffee had exclusively been made by Ianto, even they had to admit that Beth made a decent cup. Not quite as good as Ianto’s – no mere mortal was capable of _that_ – but it came close enough. Which alone was to say a lot, and Beth was understandably and justifiably proud of the fact.

Lloyd emerged from the DNA lab at the first sniff of caffeine vapours, wearing a white lab coat and a distracted expression on her pale, tired face. She and Beth had become fast friends in the recent months, which had surprised everyone, considering how very different they were, both in personality and in interest.

Apparently, there was some truth in the saying that opposites attracted each other.

Tom had found out early enough that he liked Lloyd, too. They often worked together, under Owen’s supervision, and she turned out a very funny person, with a wonderfully dry sense of humour, aside from being an excellent scientist. There was little about biochemistry that she wouldn’t know, and that extended beyond the current stand of the discipline. Working for Torchwood did have its advantages.

She was also a dog person, without actually have a dog of her own, as no pets were allowed in the bleak, monstrous block of flats in which she lived. So she often escaped to Splott to visit Molly. She came at least once a week, took her out for evening runs, played with her… even stayed to look after her when Tom had to pull a double shift.

Sometimes she stayed, even if Tom _didn’t_ have to pull any double shifts. It was a mutually advantageous arrangement. Friends with benefits, no strings attached.

She now joined the two doctors at the coffee table and yawned.

“Waiting for test results can be so boring,” she complained, all but inhaling her coffee and the blueberry cones (home-made by the newly-wed Mrs. Williams) that came with it. “I need all my willpower to say alive.”

“Perhaps it would be easier if you didn’t pull so many all-nighters in a row,” Tom commented, savouring every bite of his own scone.

It was a good thing that he had to go out to run with Molly twice a day, or else he’d have put on a lot of weight already. He hadn’t eaten so many home-made meals or baked goods since his Granny had died. Rhys and Emma certainly fed the team well.

“Perhaps,” Lloyd allowed. “But working regular hours would drive me crazy. I’ve grown used to long hours at SOCO.”

“A habit you should break before you get Teaboy on your case,” Owen advised. “You know what he’s like. He lets you do it for a while, but…”

The sound of the Rift alarm interrupted him.

“Rift activity in Butetown!” called Sally, who’d finished the graveyard shift an hour ago but stayed for the usual scone-and-coffee breakfast before actually going home. “I’m transferring the coordinates to the PDAs.”

“So much about a quiet morning, doing paperwork,” Jack commented, draining his mug and finishing his scone in two bites. “Lloyd, Owen, PC Andy, you with me. Beth, inform Ianto that we’ve gone out to investigate an alarm.”

“I’ll take over the visit to Flat Holm, then,” Rhys added, coming out from his small office to have some coffee.

Jack nodded. Thanks, Rhys. Well, people, let’s get going!”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know it’s said in the Sarah Jane adventures that Barbara and Ian haven’t aged since the 1960s. I’m just not buying it, all right? Were it so, they’d have ended up in a UNIT lab decades ago… plus, it would mean that travelling by TARDIS generally stops the aging process for humans, which isn’t true, as we know. So there.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 03**

Jenny looked around in Toshiko’s flat with great interest. It was a clean, well-ordered, utilitarian place, with only a few items reflecting on her cultural heritage. Still, it didn’t lack the warmth of a home completely.

“You sure you don’t mind me staying with you?” she asked anxiously. “You don’t have that much living space here.”

The woman who had apparently travelled with her father for years – and how unfair was that, while she only had to know him for a single day? – waved off her concern.

“I really don’t mind,” she said. “It’s nice not to be alone all the time.”

 _That_ Jenny could understand all too well. So she gracefully accepted the hospitality of the small guest room and went on to discover what else was there in the flat with child-like joy. She _loved_ getting to know new places.

It became very apparent very quickly that Toshiko did not believe in cluttering her place with souvenirs or knick-knacks of any sort. There were almost no personal items, either, save from a few framed photographs standing on the sideboard.

Some of the people on the photographs were clearly family. They had the same dark hair, exotic features and almond-shaped eyes as Toshiko herself. There was an elderly man, with thinning grey hair and a thousand wrinkles in his smiling face – presumably a grandfather. A woman in her middle years, made look older by the burden of a hard life – her mother? A young man roughly of Toshiko’s age, with a strong resemblance to her, most likely a brother. And a beautiful woman of similar age, holding a sweet-faced boy of perhaps four or five.

“Sister and nephew?” Jenny guessed, having finally learned the potential intricacies of human family relations.

Toshiko shook her head. “No, Tomoe is a friend. She helps my mother raising my son.”

“This is _your_ son?” Jenny looked at the boy in awe. “He’s very cute! Why would you hive him away?”

“It wasn’t by choice,” Toshiko replied dryly. “It’s a long story, and not one I’m quite willing to tell just yet.”

“Sorry,” Jenny offered, a little uncertainly; she still had to learn her way around the pitfalls of human sensitivities.

In the next moment, however, she forgot all about Toshiko’s family. Set a bit aside was another photograph: that of a tall man in a black leather jacket, leaning against a blue box of some sort. He looked like a soldier, his body tough and wiry, long arms folded across his chest, his hair short-cropped, emphasizing his somewhat large ears. He had a long nose and sapphire eyes, and a face that showed determination and vulnerability at the same time.

“Who’s this?” Jenny asked. “I’m positive I’ve never met him, and yet I feel as if I ought to know him.”

Toshiko smiled at that, although a little sadly.

“You should, in a manner,” she answered. “That’s your father… well, his previous incarnation, in any case. The one _I used_ to travel with… and Jack and Mickey, too, although they did get a taste from the latest one as well. Martha only knew the new one.” She gave Jenny a questioning look. “You know about regeneration and how it changes your people, don’t you?”

Jenny nodded. “For me, almost six years have gone by, according to _this_ planet’s count of time, since I emerged from the Machine. I’ve learned a lot in that time. Well, sort of; knowledge about Time Lords isn’t exactly common. As far as I can tell, a lot of what _I know_ comes from my father’s own knowledge. I just seem to rediscover more and more of it as time goes by.”

“I never knew Time Lords had genetic memory,” Toshiko murmured in surprise.

“I’m not sure they really do; but I wasn’t born in a natural way,” Jenny explained. “Progenation means that we inherit some of the progenitor’s personal memories, too. Not all of them, fortunately, and mostly those containing general knowledge, but even after all these years, I’m still trying to sort them out. There are so _many_ of them!”

“Don’t be so surprised,” Toshiko laughed gently. “Your father is over nine hundred years old. That isn’t young, not even by Gallifreyan standards. He’s seen a lot and learned a lot in those nine centuries.”

“I wish I knew more about him,” Jenny smiled ruefully. “Of the person he is… of the things he’s done. The memories are scarce at best when they come to himself.”

Toshiko nodded thoughtfully. “I’m not surprised. He’s an intensely private person. And perhaps that Progenation Machine of yours cannot access shielded thoughts. It must have had a hard time dealing with the complex mind of a Time Lord anyway. But if you want to learn more about your father, I’ve got a fairly extensive file on him. Do you want to see it?”

“Yes, please!” Jenny beamed, following her host to the combined study/home library/living room, where Toshiko powered up what was probably the most advanced computer on the planet.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Several hours later, she had to admit that Toshiko had not exaggerated when saying that her file on the last of the Time Lords was _extensive_. Quite frankly, it was _huge_. It seemed that she had gathered every oh-so-tiny shard of information she could get from humans who had previously travelled with Jenny’s father – _and_ from a military organization called UNIT, for which he Doctor had apparently worked while temporarily exiled on Earth.

There was half a century worth of history, concerning her father’s connection with Earth alone – a history she knew nothing about.

The changes her father had gone through in those decades were almost shocking. Jenny knew about regeneration, of course, but she had never thought it would make one change so profoundly.

“It’s strange to see him so physically old,” she commented, looking at the picture of a gaunt-faced, blue-eyed old man with collar-length white hair, clad in an old-fashioned black jacket. “He was so… vibrant when I meet him; even a little frisky.”

“This isn’t how _I remember_ him, either,” Toshiko smiled. “It seems that every new incarnation is a completely different person, and not only physically. Speaking of which: have _you_ changed, too, when you regenerated?”

Jenny shook her head. “I did not regenerate. I’m not even sure I could, if I had to. I was revived by the Genesis device, as part of the terraforming process of Messaline. Perhaps I’m fixed in this body for good.”

Unexpectedly, Toshiko pulled a face.

“Let’s hope for your sake that it isn’t so,” she said. “It could mess up your father-daughter relationship, should you actually find him.”

“Why?” Jenny frowned.

Toshiko sighed. “Let’s just say that your father isn’t exactly fond of _fixed_ things; they insult his sense of time. Ask Jack later, he can tell you a story about that, but it won’t be a happy one.”

“I will,” Jenny promised. 

She had taken a liking to Captain Jack at first sight. His entire being called to the soldier in her, even though he did cause a vaguely nauseous feeling in her, too, whenever he was too close. Another thing she needed to find an explanation for.

“Who’s this girl here?” she then asked.

Toshiko leaned closer to take a look at a young girl of about fifteen, wearing a grey suit, sitting in a chair that was clearly too large for her, at some sort of consol. Her legs were drawn up, and she had a funny little hat on top of her head, one Jenny would have loved to try on.

“Well, she’s with the first incarnation of your father, so she must be Susan,” Toshiko judged.

“Susan?” Jenny repeated. “Is she my big sister?”

Toshiko smiled. “No; actually she’s your niece. The Doctor was travelling with his granddaughter when visiting Earth for the first time, back in the early 1960s. For the first time in his own personal timeline, that is.”

“How do you know that?” Jenny asked. “You weren’t even alive at that time – were you?” she added, a little uncertainly. Guessing other people’s ages wasn’t something she’d be very good at.

Toshiko smiled, ignoring the last part of the question as too personal.

“I talked to Barbara Wright, who was Susan’s teacher during their stay on Earth. She also travelled with them for a while; she and her colleague and later husband, Ian Chesterton,” she checked on the names, pulling up the old-fashioned image of said two people, then other images, on which they looked a great deal older. “They’re both very delightful; teaching at the University of Cambridge.”

“They seem to be nice indeed,” Jenny agreed. “What’s become of Susan’s parents, though? Why was she travelling with Dad?”

Toshiko shrugged. “That’s one point of the mystery surrounding your father that I never figured out. In fact, he never told me about them… _or_ about Susan. He vaguely mentioned having been a father and a grandfather once, but that was basically it.”

“And what about Susan?” Jenny asked. “Is she still alive?”

“I’m not sure,” Toshiko admitted. “Barbara says that during the Dalek invasion of Earth, in the year 2164, she fell in love with a freedom fighter and stayed with him in the 22nd century. But based on how your father always declared himself the last of the Time Lords, I assume she’s died. Or she _will_ die in a century from now,” she shook her head, quoting the infamous Star Trek line. “I _hate_ temporal mechanics!”

“That’s sad,” Jenny commented; then she spotted the image of a teenaged girl again. “Is that Susan, too?”

“No,” Toshiko checked the picture. “That’s a girl named Vicky; she was a survivor of a spaceship crash on the planet Dido and menaced by some sort of monster when your father, Barbara and Ian picked her up. Apparently, she was from the 25th century, although Barbara never really found out much of her personal background. Barbara and Ian left her back on the TARDIS with your father, so I don’t know what’s become of her.”

“And this guy?” Jenny pointed at the image of a smartly handsome, laughing young man.

“Oh, that’s Steve Taylor; a space pilot from the 23rd century,” Toshiko zoomed on the picture. “Ian, Barbara and Vicky found him on the planet Mechanus; a jungle world where he’d apparently crash-landed two years earlier. He then travelled with your father for a while, before joining some noble case on a different planet. Barbara liked him a lot; she called him a strong-willed young man, more capable when there is something physical to do than when there was any thinking to be done. But he apparently had a finely developed sense of right and wrong, and he placed a high value on human life.”

“You know a great deal about Dad’s travelling companions,” Jenny said, clearly impressed.

Toshiko shrugged. “I did some private research and tried to keep in touch with those still on contemporary Earth. After all, who else could possibly understand all that I’ve seen and learned while travelling with your father?”

“There’s that,” Jenny agreed. 

Who could indeed? She’d only met her father once, and ever since that one day, she’d been trying to find him again. Because simply being in his company had made her feel more alive than the Machine – or, in fact, even the Genesis device – ever could have done.

For the last six years, she’d been looking for him. Her search had taken her to the stars – to new worlds, just as _he_ had promised her. She had seen so many words, so many people she had lost count long ago. But they all had been different; some bright and vibrant, some dark and scary, but all unique on their own right.

And somewhere out there, among all those strange and wonderful and terrible words, was her father, travelling in a blue box that was, in truth, the most amazing time ship ever created. Saving planets, rescuing civilizations, defeating evil creatures… and running a lot. Or so the woman named Donna, the same one who had given Jenny a name, had said.

Perhaps, as Captain Jack had promised, one day he would come here, to this very place, to refuel his time ship. And perhaps _then_ they would be able to travel together. Just as they had planned.

Swearing that she would be patient – for the time being anyway – Jenny returned to the computer screen. There were more pictures about people who had travelled with the first incarnation of her father. A sweet, simple girl in strangely archaic clothes. A tough-as nails woman, wearing some sort of futuristic uniform, carrying a mean-looking gun. Another teenager from the 1960s, according to the subtitle of the image that marked her as ‘Dodo’, which seemed an odd name for a girl, but what did she know about human naming customs, really? A busty blonde, looking vivacious and hip, accompanied by a widely smiling young seaman.

“Oh, man,” Jenny murmured, suitably impressed by this league of companions, all within a few years’ time. “Dad really liked to have company on his journeys, didn’t he?”

“Some of his incarnations did,” Toshiko replied, “but not all of them. In fact, when I met him, he was rather on the lonely side – rarely took more than one person with him. Two, when it came high.”

“Until the next regeneration, when everything changed again,” Jenny guessed.

Toshiko smiled. “Something like that, yes. Now, if you have put your stuff away, we should go and have an early lunch somewhere. Then we could do a little shopping before returning to the Hub. You need clothes that would fit our time better. That file will keep.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The day shift of Torchwood Three was also having lunch in the conference room of the Hub. With Rhys having gone to Flat Holm for the weekly inspection (and to talk to the inhabitants, most of whom had taken a liking to him), it was a rather simple affair this time: sandwiches and coffee, as Ianto had declared himself sick of Chinese or Thai take-out – _or_ pizza, for that matter. The others of the old team, who had lived on that fare for too many years, agreed with him, so they had switched to sandwiches, whenever Rhys was too busy to feed them something home-made and wholesome.

Aside from the day shift – which consisted of practically everyone, save Sally, Trevor and Mickey – Martha Jones and Detective Kathy Swanson had also been called in for a conference, being the Torchwood liaisons to UNIT and the local police, respectively. 

And Owen decided to give Doctor Angela Connelly from _St Helens_ , who did freelance work for them semi-regularly, a call, too. The good doctor, who looked as if made of milk chocolate (and was every bit as tempting, in Owen’s secret opinion) had become quite the expert at doing autopsy on dead aliens in the recent year. She deserved to see some _living_ aliens for a change, Owen thought.

Ianto had accepted his argument with a shrug. He had no objections against Angie’s presence. In truth, he was planning to offer her a full-time job at Torchwood. That would give them a fully capable duty doctor for each shift; and besides, they all liked Angie and her no-nonsense attitude.

“Jenny’s tests all came back negative,” Owen informed them, swallowing the last bite of his sandwich. “She’s almost disgustingly healthy, and she doesn’t seem to carry any pathogens that could be potentially dangerous for us.”

“Unless she has some bugs our instruments don’t recognize,” Lloyd added soberly.

Jack shook his head. “Nah, that’s unlikely. Our medical scanner is a salvaged piece from New Earth and was originally programmed by the cat nurses in the hospital there. The bug it wouldn’t recognize won’t exist for the next five billion years.”

“The Sisters of Plenitude?” Martha asked in surprise. “Where would you come across their medical equipment?”

Jack shrugged. “I did a bit of pilfering aboard the TARDIS. She practically led me to some medical gizmos while I was recovering, so she must have thought I should have it.”

“Did you tell the Doctor you’d taken it?” Ianto gave him a faint, ironic grin. Jack grinned back.

“ _He_ didn’t tell me in advance that he’d exchanged my sonic blaster for a banana either, so I think we’re on equal footing now,” he replied. “Besides, he can work it out with the TARDIS if he’s got a problem with me having it. It was _her_ idea, after all.”

“You’ve got a point,” Ianto admitted. “So, have you managed to download the navigational data from Jenny’s ship while the two of you were flying it to the hangar?”

Jack nodded. “Navigational data, ship’s log, additional databases… it’s amazing how much data Tosh’s pet gizmo can store away.”

“The alien iPad?” Owen, the only other who knew what they were talking about, inquired.

“Yep,” Ianto said. “A very handy little thing. Emma, would you like to start cataloguing the data?”

“I’d love to, but I’m not quite finished in the Archives yet,” Emma confessed.

Ianto’s brows drew together in displeasure. “We’re already behind schedule, you know.”

“I know, and I’m really sorry,” Emma replied guiltily. “It’s just… I don’t seem to find back to my usual rhythm since we came back from the honeymoon.”

“That’s understandable; you’ve had an important change in your life,” Ianto said. “Still, we _have_ to catch up with our backlog, or we’ll drown in chaos. I know what I’m speaking about,” he added, with a meaningful look at Jack and Owen, each. “When I came here, the Archives were in an outrageous state. I won’t let them get that way again.”

Emma nodded miserably. “I’ll do my best.”

“You won’t have to do it alone,” Ianto promised. “I’ll rearrange a few security protocols, so that Beth would be able to do some filing from the tourist office. That’s how I dealt with non-confidential stuff in my first year. And I’ll analyse the stuff from Jenny’s database myself. But the rest is yours.”

“I can help you with the analysis,” Jack offered, but Ianto shook his head.

“No, I want you to go with Tosh and Trevor to the hangar and work on the ship itself. You’re the only one among us with actual experience with future spacecraft, human _or_ alien. I want you to keep an eye on our geeks. They tend to become over-excited, and I want them to be safe. Jenny can help me with the analysis.”

“And you can keep an eye on _her_ in exchange,” Jack finished for him. “You’re a sneaky bastard, Mister Jones.”

“I try my best, Captain,” Ianto replied in his best ninja butler manner.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
By the time they had finished lunch, Trevor came back, looking better-rested and eager to go on with the examination of the alien ship. His enthusiasm got dimmed a bit when he learned that he would have to work with Jack, but the fact that Tosh would be going with them, too, apparently made up for _that_.

Tosh and Jenny arrived about half an hour later, Jenny now wearing new jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt that looked, at least, a bit more feminine than her khaki trousers and tank top; the deep burgundy red of the shirt matched her fair colouring nicely. Ianto thought to see Tosh’s excellent taste in the choice.

“We’re still waiting for the results of the DNA mapping,” he told her, “so I thought it would be best if you stayed here in the Hub for the time being. You can help me with the analysis of your database. It seems to contain a fair number of alien species we’ve never heard of before. It would be very helpful if you could tell me about them beyond that which has been filed. Nothing can beat first-hand experience, after all.”

“Of course, I’d love to help,” Jenny replied eagerly. “Which species would you like to know more about?”

“All of them, to be honest, but we should start with the ones you were on the run from when the Rift storm caught you,” Ianto suggested.

Jenny nodded; she seemed to turn into military mode again, as if someone had thrown an internal switch or something.

“The _Xithian Alliance_ ,” she clarified. “That would be a tactically sound idea. Know your enemies before you meet them.”

“I thought they were _your_ enemies,” Ianto said mildly.

“They are,” Jenny agreed, “but if they manage to track my ship to follow me through the anomaly…”

“The _Rift_ ,” Ianto corrected. Jenny shrugged.

“The Rift then. If they manage to follow me through, they’ll become your enemies, too, very soon. They consider all the species outside of the _Alliance_ inferior and hostile. They’re pretty much at war with everyone they’ve ever run into in their area of influence… and beyond.”

“They must be an extraordinarily war-like race then,” Martha commented. “Just like the Daleks.”

“They’re not _one_ race,” Jenny answered. “Actually, the _Alliance_ is made up of three very different species, all of which have their own specific role within their bound. It’s generally thought, however, that the _Hithon_ are the mastermind that operates the _Alliance_ as a whole.”

“What are they like?” Owen asked, his professional interest piqued.

“I don’t know,” Jenny confessed. “No-one who’s ever seen a _Hithon_ face to face lived to tell the tale. Rumours say that they’re an insectoid species with a telepathic hive mind, with which they supposedly kill certain races that are vulnerable to telepathic attacks, but that has never been confirmed. Usually, they employ he _Xi’sa_ if they want to attack and destroy other races.”

“The _what_?” Ianto frowned. The name sounded like a bad case of sneezes.

“The _Xi’sa_ are energy beings,” Jenny explained. “They’re actually very pretty to look at: like dense clouds, lit by flickering bolts of energy that looks like lightning. Much like any storm clouds, really, just in space. They need no atmosphere whatsoever and aren’t affected by extreme temperatures, pressure, or the lack of it. They can only communicate with telepathic species, and the _Hithon_ use them as living weapons,”

“That makes sense,” Swanson said, “if both species are telepathic, as you say.”

But Jenny shook her head. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “The _Hithon_ hive mind, assuming it really does exist, is powerful, but their telepathy and that of the _Xi’sa_ are not compatible. That’s why they need the _Shanelan_.”

“Like the guy you helped to escape, which pissed off the _Hithon_ enough to chase you halfway through the galaxy?” Andy summarized. Jenny nodded.

“The _Shanelan_ are a telepathically very powerful race. They can communicate with the _Hithon_ and the _Xi’sa_ , both. The _Hithon_ basically use them to control the _Xi’sa_ , and also as the central processor unit of their organic spaceships. It’s said that _Hithon_ telepathy, while powerful enough to kill telepathically sensitive races, isn’t very constructive… or versatile. An entire hive could barely operate one of their ships, while a single _Shanelan_ is able to do it on its own.”

“You speak about a sentient species as _it_?” Martha asked with a frown.

Jenny shrugged. “That is pretty much what they _are_. They have no genders and procreate by asexual insemination, completely outside of their bodies. It’s funny, actually, considering that they are the most humanoid-looking in appearance of all three Alliance members.”

“What do they look like, then?” Lloyd asked, curiously.

“Much like humans,” Jenny replied, “only taller. You’d hardly find any among them who’d be shorter than six foot. They’ve got egg-shaped, elongated skulls, but are completely hairless, and large, pointy ears that are flattened against the back of their skulls. Oh, and only four fingers on each hand, two of which are opposable.”

“Gives the phrase of somebody being all thumbs a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?” Owen commented. “Do you have specifics on these guys?”

“Yeah, they’re pretty well-known in that corner of the galaxy,” Jenny said with a shrug. “They were telepathically forewarned when the _Hithon_ attacked their homeworld, so a great many of them fled to other planets in time.”

“So they’ve developed space flight on their own?” Jack asked.

“More like stolen the necessary knowledge from the minds of visiting species, but I guess that leads to the same results,” Jenny answered, “Their spaceships weren’t terribly advanced, though. They barely managed to the next inhabited system before breaking down.”

“Still, it saved them from being enslaved,” Swanson said. “Which is definitely an achievement.”

“It is,” Jenny allowed. “Not that they’d be particularly welcome anywhere, though. They’re arrogant and dismissive to all non-telepaths – well, even to most other telepaths, to tell the truth – and people generally fear that their presence would draw in the _Hithon_. So they’ve pretty much become space nomads, with small, supporting outposts on unfriendly moons or larger asteroids.”

“Which makes them all the more vulnerable,” Tom said quietly.

Jenny nodded. “True, but they don’t really have any other chance. Besides, this way they can at least run away at any given time. Settled colonies cannot do _that_.”

“What about those energy things?” Andy asked. “Do _they_ have a homeworld of some sort?”

“Well, they _had_ to have originated somewhere, but they are most reluctant to discuss their past,” Jenny answered matter-of-factly, as if communicating with dense clouds of spaceborn energy would be the most common thing in the universe. “They say the past is irrevocably behind us, and only the future matters. But my guess would be that their planet of origins must have been a gas giant, where they dwelt in the atmosphere, as they like to rest in such places on their travels.”

“Wait a minute, are you telling me that you’ve been able to _talk_ to a cloud of living, sentient _energy_?” Lloyd asked, perplexed. “How on Earth did you do that?”

“Gallifreyans are a telepathic race,” Martha reminded her.

“True, but I’ve never actually talked to a _Xi’sa_ ,” Jenny said. “I only know about them what the _Shanelan_ told me. It was quite well-versed in all things _Xi’sa_ , though; served s the channel between one and their _Hithon_ hive for a while.”

“I still wonder how their masters could use the creatures as a weapon,” Swanson murmured.

“They same way you’d use _any_ energy weapon,” Jenny replied with a shrug. “Only on a much larger scale. Given enough time and energy to feed on, a single _Xi'sa_ could rip off the surface of a whole planet.”

“It’s horrible to imagine what a dozen of them could do then,” the ever-practical Andy muttered.

Jenny, however, heard him and shook her head.

“They are rarely able to work together. Their energy, the frequencies of it, doesn’t allow two or more individuals of the species to occupy the same planetary orbit. Most of them are incompatible with each other – fortunately, or else the _Xithian Alliance_ would have expanded to a pan-galactic power by now.”

“Are there any data about where the name of the _Alliance_ came from?” Ianto asked, overcome by professional curiosity and in full Archivist mode. If there was anything he loved, that was trivia.

“There’s a myth, or so the _Shanelan_ told me,” Jenny said. “According to it, Xithia was the homeworld of the _Hithon_. They shared it with four or five other sentient species, each occupying a different environment. In a long and bloody war for dominance, the _Hithon_ not only exterminated the other races of their homeworld but also rendered the whole planet inhabitable. That was when they reached out for the stars.”

“Bad luck for the stars,” Owen commented cynically.

“You can say that,” Jenny agreed. “The worst part is that we know practically nothing about them. Not even the _Shanelan_ had ever seen a _Hithon_ face to face – they never leave their ships, and even within the ships, the _Shanelan_ serving as their control processor unit is trapped in a bleak chamber, hooked up to all sorts of machinery, completely isolated from the hive itself.”

“What about those who serve as channel between the _Ki’sha_ and a hive?” Martha asked.

“It’s the same; they’re kept in an isolated room all the time,” Jenny explained. “Since the entire communication takes place telepathically, there’s no need for them to physically meet either of the parties.”

“What a bleak existence!” Andy shuddered.

Jenny nodded. “Yeah; some of the _channels_ go mad from the complete sensory deprivation after a while. Those operating the ships at least have something to do: new situations to master, various stimuli coming from the sensors. They become part of the ship, basically. But the _channels_ have nothing. They usually don’t live long, once assigned to such a post.”

“And yet your friend managed to escape,” Andy pointed out.

“It wasn’t my _friend_ ,” Jenny clarified. “It was one of the most unpleasant creatures I’ve ever met, and that’s saying a lot, considering how unpleasant they generally are, the entire race of them. But yeah, it managed to escape – with a little help from me and a great deal of luck. It was on board of a small scout ship, on its way to a hive ship where it was supposed to be integrated as the central processor unit. It managed to distract its fellow _Shanelan_ , the pilot of the scout ship, long enough for the ship to suffer some serious system damage and to crash on a small, uninhabited moon. I picked it up from the wreckage almost by accident.”

“What about the pilot?” Swanson asked.

“It died in the crash,” Jenny shrugged. “Once they merge with a ship, they live or die with it. They cannot be separated from it again. That’s organic technology for you. It has many advantages, but there’s always a catch. And it’s more vulnerable than purely mechanical equipment, which is why I personally prefer the latter.”

“Still, _Hithon_ technology must be fairly advanced, if they’ve succeeded in destroying or enslaving so many other planets,” Ianto said, concerned that their guest might lead the aggressive race to Earth.

“Destruction is easy,” Jenny said seriously. “Much easier than peaceful cooperation. That’s why so many people prefer it to other solutions. I’m sorry that I’ve endangered you by coming here. I’ll leave as soon as I can, I promise.”

Gallifreyan telepathy was apparently a powerful thing, too.

“We don’t ask you to leave,” Ianto replied. “Like all well-meaning people who land on our planet, you’re welcome to stay. All we ask for is information that can help us defend you – and ourselves.”

Jenny gave him a brilliant smile.

“I’ll give you everything I have,” she promised. “I think I like you, Director Jones. You’d make a great travelling companion for a Time Lady.”

Ianto needed all his famous self-discipline _not_ to choke on his coffee at _that_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t mind the technobabble; it’s been made up by me, mostly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 04**

“Look at this baby!” Trevor Howard, Torchwood Three’s number two geek slowly walked around the little Raxacoricofallapatorian ship that was standing in the middle of the great, empty hangar – Myfanwy’s earliest abode – on its three extended landing struts, to take it in from every possible angle. “Ain’t she a beauty? Definitely an updated design, compared with the one we fished out of the Thames in 2006. More streamlined, too. But that was to be expected.”

“How that?” Jack asked absently. Trevor in happy geek mode was a lot more boring (not to mention a lot less cute) than Tosh in a similar condition, but he couldn’t deny that the engineer knew his stuff.

“We’ve classified the other ship as a landing unit; as part of a much bigger vessel, some sort of shuttle, most likely,” Trevor explained. “It only had atmospheric thrusters, indicating that it probably wasn’t even capable of independent space travel, save from very short passages between two motherships, in which case it must have functioned as a glider. _This_ little lady, on the other hand, is definitely equipped to travel in deeps space alone, without the backup of a mothership.”

“It has hyperspace capability?” Tosh asked in surprise. “Isn’t it too small for that?”

“Raxacoricofallapatorian technology is known for its remarkable headway in miniaturising,” Trevor reminded her. “But my guess is that this ship isn’t running with its original engines. Preliminary scans showed a slight yet definite discrepancy between the energy signatures coming from the engines and the board systems, respectively.”

Tosh checked the readouts and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. The technology is similar but not exactly the same. Which means that the engines either come from a later, slightly more advanced phase of Raxacoricofallapatorian technology, or from a completely different sort that is roughly on the same technological level. Perhaps just a little bit more advanced.”

“Good; there’s no chance then of the ship falling apart simply from being over-powered,” Jack said.

“No, but it has taken quite the beating by some kind of energy weapon,” Trevor replied, “and some of the board systems have sorted out, too. The damage report will be longer than my arm, I’m afraid.”

“Let’s hope we’ll be able to manufacture some ersatz parts that might be needed,” Jack sighed. “I wonder if we have random pieces of Raxacoricofallapatorian tech buried somewhere in the Archives.”

“If anyone, Jonesy would know,” Trevor answered. “We might be able to use parts of the crashed ship from 2006, too. They ought to be compatible, even if a bit outdated.”

“You mean that ship still exists?” Jack asked in surprise.

Trevor nodded. “Oh, yes. When we were done examining and studying it, the wrack was transferred into one of Headquarters’ external storerooms, where it probably has been collecting dust ever since.”

“Do you know which one?” Tosh’s eyes gleamed with excitement.

Trevor shook his head. “No, but Jonesy ought to be able to find out. Such transfers were always documented in the Archives. He would know where to look for the information.”

Once again, the unparalleled importance of the Archivists for Headquarters – and, consequently, the true value of Ianto’s knowledge – became crystal clear for Jack. The thought that the last surviving Archivist of the Institute had laboured as their janitor for more than a year still filled him with shame. Fortunately, Her Majesty the Queen had shown better judgement in his absence. Making Ianto the head of what was left from Torchwood had been the best decision she could have made.

Even if the fact that he’d been so swiftly replaced still smarted Jack sometimes.

Well, this was not the time to mourn over lost positions; besides, he could only blame himself. Had he not been so keen on keeping secrets from his own team, things might have turned out differently. Right now, however, they had a spaceship to repair – and, surprisingly enough, perhaps even the means to do so.

Jack activated his earpiece. “Ianto? Trevor says we’ll need spare parts from the other Raxacoricofallapatorian ship; the one Headquarters scavenged after the thwarted Slitheen invasion… and that you’d know where One has stored it.”

“Not off the top of my head, I don’t,” Ianto’s calm voice answered. “I was responsible for the data concerning alien life forms, not for their technology. But I’ll look into the transfer records. It shouldn’t be hard to find where it’s been taken – and it would give Emma the opportunity to learn how to deal with the Virtual Archives.”

“The real problem will be to get it here from London somehow,” Jack said. “Especially without drawing any unwanted attention. Not even Mickey’s monster truck will be big enough to transfer an entire spaceship.”

“Not in one piece,” Trevor agreed. “We’ll have to dismantle it; or remove all spare parts we might need for the repairs. It’s gonna be a lengthy job.”

“Which means: somebody will have to go to London with Mickey and help him remove the necessary parts,” Ianto said, with a hint of a smile in his voice.

“Yeah,” Trevor agreed, also smiling. “No great hardship on my part, Jonesy.”

“I thought there wouldn’t be,” there was gentle amusement in Ianto’s voice. “All right, I’ll search the transfer records for you, and – Rift permitting – you can leave for London in a day or two.”

“Great,” Trevor rubbed his hands in glee. “Do you think I can take Jenny with me? She seems to know her way around Raxacoricofallapatorian tech; it would make things easier.”

“No,” Ianto replied courtly. “As long as we can’t be sure that she really is who she says she is, I don’t want her anywhere near to the UNIT Headquarters.”

“And what if she really __is the Doctor’s daughter?” Jack asked.

“Then I’d want her even less within UNIT’s reach,” Ianto said. “You know how they deal with aliens, Jack. They’re not much better than Torchwood London used to be. She’d never see the light of the day again, once they got their hands on her.”

“The Brigadier would never allow that!” Jack protested.

“Perhaps not,” Ianto allowed, “but save for special cases, the Brigadier can no longer influence things within UNIT. Certainly not when it comes to the daily routine. I’d prefer if they didn’t learn about Jenny at all, unless it’s inevitable.”

“All right,” Jack had to admit that Ianto’s concerns were not entirely unfounded. “What do you want us to do now? We can’t go on with the repairs till the spare parts arrive.”

“I need a detailed list about the damage and the spare parts that will be needed,” Ianto answered. “Trevor can do that on his own, so don’t panic. As for you, I want you to take a good, hard look at the damage the ship has suffered and make an educated guess about the weapons that were used to cause it. If these aliens manage to track Jenny down through the Rift, we must know what we’re dealing with.”

“If they manage to track her down,” Jack said slowly, “we might soon face a full-scale invasion.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Ianto agreed. “Which is why we need to learn as much about their weapons as we can.”

“I can make preliminary scans on the hits’ energy signature with my wrist strap,” Jack offered. “But we’ll have to come back with more serious equipment later.”

“No,” Ianto said. “Remove the damaged parts that need to be replaced. We’ll be examining them in the Hub. That’s safer.”

“Yeah, but they’re pretty big parts,” Jack pointed out. “They won’t fit into the SUV.”

“I’ll send Mickey with the truck,” Ianto promised. "It might even be helpful if he gets to see what sort of spare parts he’ll be fetching from London. The problem is, he’s out, dealing with a Weevil sighting right now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack said. “We’ve got enough stuff here to keep ourselves occupied until he arrives.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Mickey and his monster truck arrived an hour later. He had brought PC Andy with him, and the four men spent another two hours with loading all damaged parts of Jenny’s ship that Trevor had found worth examining more closely – and that they could actually remove without damaging the little vessel even more – onto the truck. Which, as Mickey critically remarked, was more than half the ship.

“You’ve got your work cut out for you, mate,” he said to Trevor. “Building a whole new ship might be easier.”

“In the end, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do, I’m afraid,” the engineer replied, scratching his bald head absent-mindedly, his mind already working on several problems at the same time. “Even with the spare parts from the other Raxacoricofallapatorian ship, we’ll have to be really… creative to make this baby space-born again. The damage is worse than I’ve originally assumed. A _lot_ worse.”

“Ask Tosh,” Jack suggested. “She’s one of her kind in the creative department.” 

“Now, Jack, you’re exaggerating,” Tosh managed _not_ to blush, but it was a close call.

“Nonsense,” Jack said. “Anyone who can build a functional sonic weapon based on completely useless blueprints can also rebuild a small spaceship from spare parts.”

“Perhaps, but I’m not gonna let her have all the fun,” Trevor grinned. “I mean, playing around with bits of alien tech is nice, but rebuilding a whole _spaceship_? That’s the wet dream of every engineer come true.”

“I’d be careful if I were you,” Jack warned. “Raxacoricofallapatorian ships usually have an artificial intelligence built into their board systems. A rudimentary one, most likely, but still advanced enough to cause nasty surprises if you mess around with them.”

“Captain,” Trevor replied with barely contained amusement, “you’re forgetting that I’ve worked for Torchwood London in the cybernetics department. We were _building_ AIs… well, we were on our way to do that. I know you still despise us, the ones you call Yvonne’s leftovers, and that Jonesy is the only one you actually trust. But let me tell you this: we were hired because we were _good_ at what we did. And we got even better, thank all the alien tech we got to study. So don’t worry – I can do this. I’m sure Toshiko and Jenny will help, but this is my scientific field.”

“Are we done?” Mickey interrupted them a little impatiently. “Cos if we are, we should head back to the Hub. Loading all this junk off and storing it somewhere you can poke at it safely will take _time_. And we still have to go to London tomorrow. Or the day after.”

Trevor checked his list one last time and then nodded. “Yup, we’re done. Let’s secure the hangar and get going. We won’t be back here for the next few days.”

“You ride with Mickey and Andy,” Jack suggested. “I’ll take Tosh back to the Hub.”

“Works for me,” Trevor was already climbing into the driver’s cabin of the truck.

Jack let them out of the main door, then he closed the hangar, switched on the security system – after all, they didn’t want anyone prodding at Jenny’s ship – and headed to the SUV, hoping against tope that there would be some of Ianto’s magic coffee left on the bottom of his thermos.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Colonel Alan Mace, commanding officer of the UNIT base just outside Cardiff, glared at his unexpected visitor suspiciously. Said visitor was a blonde woman in her late thirties, wearing an elegant, pin-striped charcoal grey trouser suit with high heels and carrying a yellow satchel that served both as a handbag and as a laptop case. Her pale skin, straw-coloured hair and almost watery blue eyes gave her a somewhat unhealthy look, but she seemed competent enough nonetheless… for a shrink.

“Let me get this straight,” Colonel Mace said with what he thought to be mild dismay. “You are a therapist and here to deal with Jenkins and the other nutcases?”

The woman nodded, not taking offence or, at the very least, not showing it.

“Psychiatrist, actually, specialized for the treating of post-traumatic stress syndrome,” she said in a somewhat monotonous voice. “I thought Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had announced me well in advance. My name is Doctor Emilia Fox.”

“Yes, I know who you are, Doctor,” Colonel Mace replied sourly. “You were the one counselling the survivors of Canary Wharf. If I remember correctly, it wasn’t such a glowing success, though. How many of them have committed suicide since then?”

“Too many,” Doctor Fox was clearly hard-pressed to keep her professional calm. “Unfortunately, we can’t always help everyone, and Canary Wharf was an extraordinary disaster, even as alien invasions go. The Sontaran attack was a different matter entirely. Besides, your Privates have managed _not_ to kill themselves so far, so there is still hope that they might make a full recovery – with the proper help.”

“I knew it was a mistake to allow Jenkins to sign up as a simple soldier,” Colonel Mace murmured unhappily. “Simple soldiers with high-ranking relatives are always a nuisance. Which one of them had the brilliant idea to send you here anyway? His father? His mother? That eccentric uncle of his, Captain Magambo’s pet scientist?”

“Actually, it was Commodore Sullivan who came up with the suggestion,” Doctor Fox explained.

Colonel Mace rolled his eyes. “His godfather, then. Terrific!”

“You must admit that the idea does have its merits, Colonel,” Doctor Fox said, refusing to be intimidated by the foul mood of the base commander. “Those three soldiers are practically vegetating here, wasting their time, while UNIT has lost too many men in the recent years to afford that luxury. Wouldn’t it be better if we could clear them for armed duty again?”

“It _would_ ,” Colonel Mace admitted reluctantly. “I’m just not sure it will ever be possible. Well, perhaps with Harris; he’s coping best. Grey, on the other hand, has become a nervous wreck who turns into jelly whenever an officer as much as looks at him. And Jenkins – he’s sheer unbearable. I’m not sure there’s any hope for him at all.”

“Give me at least the chance to work with them,” Doctor Fox insisted. “They might surprise you.”

“They do that each day; and not in a good way,” Colonel Mace said dryly. “But orders are orders. If the Commodore wants them to get counselling, then counselling is what they will get, regardless of what I personally might think about the whole thing.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Why is the colonel fighting this so much?” Doctor Fox asked the medical officer of the base, a pretty, dark-skinned young woman by the name of Doctor Martha Jones. “One would think it were in his interest to have three of his men, who are practically useless at the moment, cleared for duty again.”

“Right now, the colonel would fight practically anything that comes with an order from the general staff,” Doctor Jones explained. “He considers his current position as a serious setback in his career, and let’s face it, that is what it is. He’s practically exiled here, running this insignificant little base, shut out of all important decisions – compared with the fact that he used to command the entire British division of UNIT, this _is_ a serious setback. Probably a fatal one.”

“Yes, I do remember him being in charge after the Battle of Canary Wharf,” Doctor Fox nodded. “What happened?”

“There’s some unconvincing official explanation,” Doctor Jones said, “but if you listen to barrack gossip, which is always the most convincing source of information, it had something to do with violating the non-fraternization rules.”

Doctor Fox stared at her colleague in surprise. “They’ve exiled him here because of a love affair?”

Doctor Jones nodded. “According to Private Jenkins, yes. And what Jenkins doesn’t know about the inside affairs of UNIT isn’t even worth knowing.”

“And he’s willing to share his knowledge, I assume,” Doctor Fox grinned. “No wonder the colonel considers him a nuisance.”

“He’s not a bad guy,” Doctor Jones said, clearly fond of the base’s _enfant terrible_. “It can’t be easy for him, with all those important people in the family, all pressuring him to make a spectacular career and outdo them in every imaginable aspect. He needs an outlet for that pressure.”

“And he chose to be outrageous and signed up as a simple soldier, just to piss them off,” Doctor Fox finished. “There are worse solutions, I guess. But why would the colonel think that he’s beyond hope? Was his shock so much more severe than that of the other two?”

“The main problem with Jenkins is not of purely mental nature,” Doctor Jones replied thoughtfully. “With that part, he deals fairly well. But he’s taken some serious physical damage from that Sontaran weapon. He has inner ear problems that disturb his balance, so much that he can’t even drive a car. Some nerves responsible for controlling finer movements have been irreparably damaged, _and_ he has a serious case of insomnia, most of the time. His hand-eye coordination seems unaffected, which enables him to play computer games. That has become some sort of escape for him. But he’s on the way of becoming an addict, since that’s basically the only thing he can do like he could before. Even if he answered positively to counselling, which, to be honest, I doubt, he might never be cleared for armed duty again.”

“What about erection problems?” Doctor Fox asked, knowing that the kind of injuries Private Jenkins had suffered often led to that, too.

Doctor Jones shrugged. “His physical reactions are normal, but he seems to have lost interest in sex. And that, according to the other two, isn’t exactly normal for him. After all, he used to be known by the nickname of _the cockerel_.”

Doctor Fox nodded, thinking about priorities. “Is there no way to heal him physically?”

Doctor Jones shook her head. “Not with the current medical technology we have on Earth, there’s not.”

The peculiar phrasing didn’t fail to catch Doctor Fox’ interest.

“Are you thinking of something in particular?” she asked.

Doctor Jones nodded. “We should ask Torchwood. Nobody knows for sure what _they_ have stored in their Archives. Perhaps there’s something that can help. I know for a fact that Torchwood London used to have access to nanotechnology. If it survived Canary Wharf or not, I’ve no idea, but we could _ask_.”

“And they would tell us the truth?” Doctor Fox asked doubtfully.

It was a justified question. Torchwood was never very forthcoming with information about the technology they had harvested. At least Torchwood London hadn’t been, and what Doctor Fox had heard about Torchwood Three did not exactly encourage her. If possible, Captain Harkness was considered even more secretive and mistrustful than Director Hartmann had been, and _that_ was saying a lot.

“We can try,” Doctor Jones replied. “The new Torchwood Director is a bit more cooperative than Captain Harkness used to be, and since _he_ was the one to suggest your involvement to Commodore Sullivan, it would be only fair if he helped us.”

“ _You_ ask him,” Doctor Fox clarified. “ _You_ are the Torchwood liaison. I’m still wondering how he picked me of all the available therapists, though.”

“Well, he’s one of the survivors of Canary Wharf, so your name must have already been known to him,” Doctor Jones shrugged. “But, as far as I know, it was actually your ex who suggested you.”

“Tom?” Doctor Fox asked in surprise. “What does _he_ have to do with Torchwood?”

“He’s their new medic; has been for the last three months or so,” Doctor Jones explained. “Doctor Harper is still in therapy, and they needed somebody with practical experience, so they hired him.”

“And he accepted?” Doctor Fox found that a little hard to believe. “I thought he was happy to get that job at A&E. He always wanted to become a surgeon.”

“He still does, and he will, eventually,” Doctor Jones replied. “Torchwood offered him a better opportunity than that London hospital, I guess. He seems to like his new job just fine.”

Doctor Fox shook her head, still astonished. “Somehow I can’t imagine Tom Milligan of all people to go alien-hunting. He’s always had a helper complex the size of a planet. That’s what drove him to _Physicians Without Borders_ in Africa, and then to A &E. He always wanted to _save_ people; not to cut dead aliens open.”

“And you never wondered where his nightmares come from?” Doctor Jones asked seriously. “The nightmares he could never explain, not even to himself?”

“Of course I did,” Doctor Fox replied. “But we never found an answer. We’ve tried everything, even hypnosis, but it didn’t help,” she gave the UNIT doctor a sharp look. “Do _you_ know where they come from?”

Doctor Jones nodded. “I do. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to speak about it. Let’s just say that he had an alien encounter; and it encouraged him to work for Torchwood.”

“Which means that he might have access to whatever medical devices Torchwood keeps shut away,” Doctor Fox guessed.

“Not to nanotechnology, I’m quite sure about that,” Doctor Jones said. “Such things are in the Secure Archives. But if we hold a consilium and all three of us attest the necessity to use a certain piece of alien technology, Director Jones might consider allowing it. He’s a very reasonable man.”

“Director Jones? Is he a relative of yours?” Doctor Fox knew _Jones_ was a fairly common name, especially in Wales, but considering how very few people had anything to do with Torchwood in these days, she felt the question justified.

“Oh, no,” Doctor Jones replied with a wide smile. “ _That_ particular branch of Joneses is quite unique as you’ll see. Come with me now, Doctor; I’ll show you my personal notes concerning your patients’ condition, and we can decide together what to do next. “

“Call me Em,” Doctor Fox said, following her colleague to the medical data storage of the base.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
It was beyond 11 pm when Ianto finished processing and fling away all the information Jack had downloaded from the database of Jenny’s ship. He’d sent Emma home to Rhys hours earlier – they still counted as newlyweds and needed some private time – and had completely lost himself in his work.

He loved being an archivist; integrating new pieces of knowledge into the ever-growing, complex system that was the Torchwood Archives. Unfortunately, his new and demanding duties as the Torchwood Director didn’t leave him nearly enough time to familiarize himself with more than just the really important new discoveries. Having a photographic memory came in handy if one was an archivist; however it could lead to information overload and a mental collapse if one was the _only_ archivist, so he had to be careful.

Which was why he’d begun to instruct Emma in the job as soon as he’d hired her. He _needed_ to delegate. That still didn’t mean he had to _like_ sharing his beloved Archives with anyone. And sometimes he simply couldn’t resist doing some of the work all by himself, just like in old times.

He knew he’d pay for today’s indulgence with a nasty headache tomorrow. His eyes felt already dry and gritty, as if filled with sand, and he saw stars as he emerged from the Archives to the better illuminated working area of the Hub. 

For some reason he couldn’t explain, he had the feeling that the day wasn’t over yet, though.

He found the main Hub empty, save for Sally who was writing on her thesis at one of the workstations while keeping half an eye on the Rift monitor.

“Where’s everyone?” he asked, because this definitely wasn’t what night watch was supposed to look like.

“I sent them home,” Jack answered, and the silhouette of Jack himself, now in his shirtsleeves and wearing a waistcoat that accentuated his strong upper body most flatteringly, appeared on the balcony. “Mickey and Trevor must go to London, first thing in the morning, so they need their sleep. PC Andy and Owen are on emergency call, just in case, and Lloyd is still in her lab, doing… well, frankly, I don’t have a clue what she’s doing there, but it seems important. Tosh’s taken Jenny home and Tom’s got a phone call from Martha and left three hours ago.”

“I see,” it sounded a reasonable arrangement for the night, even if it didn’t match the actual schedule. “What are _you_ still doing here?”

“Jack shrugged. “I need less sleep than the rest of you, so I figured I’d stay in tonight instead of Trevor. If there’s some minor Rift activity, I can deal with it alone; I’ve done so often enough in the past. If something bigger comes up, I’ll call in Owen and PC Andy.”

“All right,” Ianto said tiredly. “I’m off for home, then. It’s been a long day.”

Jack gave him a mildly concerned look. “Do you want a lift? You look like death warmed over.”

“I _feel_ like death warmed over,” Ianto admitted ruefully. “Nothing that a week of sleep wouldn’t cure, though.”

“Yeah, cos you get to sleep for a week… when exactly?” Jack returned a little more sharply than originally intended. “You’re so concerned about the rest of the team getting proper off-hours, but you keep running yourself ragged.”

“It isn’t happening by choice, behave me,” Ianto replied, giving in to the temptation to lean against Jack, luxuriating in the feeling of Jack’s arms coming up around him protectively. “It’s the sodding Rift. Ever since we opened it, it’s been completely unpredictable; just as you’d warned us before you left. It’s our own damned fault. We should have listened to you.”

“Ianto,” Jack lifted the younger man’s chin to look him straight in the reddened eyes. “Self-recriminations are fruitless. What’s done is done; we can’t change it.”

“We should have trusted you to know what you were talking about,” Ianto said quietly. “We should have _trusted_ you, period.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Jack gave him a brief kiss. “And I should have trusted you with a little more than I actually did. So we’re to take the blame in equal measure; but that’s the past now, ain’t it? Let’s hope we learned from it and won’t make the same mistake again. Deal?”

“Deal,” Ianto accepted the kiss but made no attempts to continue on with that sort of action, to Jack’s regret. Instead, he gently extracted himself from Jack’s hug. “I really ought to go before I fall asleep on my feet.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?” Jack asked. “What if you fall asleep behind the steering wheel?”

“I won’t,” Ianto replied with a tried smile, “cos I’ll walk home. It’s not far, and the fresh air would do me good. Clearing my muddy head, for starters.”

Jack didn’t like the idea of Ianto practically sleep-wandering through the nightly Cardiff, but he couldn’t really do anything against it. Ianto wasn’t a child anymore, and he was his boss. He could do as he pleased.

“All right,” he said, “but give me a call when you’re home. Just to put my mind at ease.”

Ianto promised that he would do so. Then he stepped onto the slab of the invisible lift, taking the shortest and easiest way out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
It took the closest surveillance post almost a local sub-cycle – their telepathic thralls would have called it a _week_ – to find the signal of the tracking device the lost patrol had managed to put on the small, hostile ship. When the listening post finally managed to localize it, it led them to a strange phenomenon: to a tear in space-time, where it was abruptly cut.

The discovery led to a minor dispute within the Tactical Division. Some military scientists speculated that such a small ship would never survive the crossing of a spatio-temporal anomaly, especially not with the damage it had suffered from the high-energy blasters of the lost patrol. Consequently, they suggested dropping the entire topic and focusing their energies on more important issues.

More tactically inclined minds, however, pointed out that a ship of such primitive design shouldn’t have been able to survive a fight with a regular patrol in the first place, let alone to shoot the patrolling cutter to glowing pieces and still avoid being identified. An unknown factor always meant a risk, and the Tactical Division accepted only one way to deal with potentially dangerous factors: by destroying them.

Besides, as one of the chief War-masters reminded the rest of the staff, if the ship managed to cross the anomaly in one piece, that meant the pilot could tell whoever lived on the other side about them – and they didn’t want _that_. They preferred to have the element of surprise on their side, once that particular sector of space would be declared ripe for being conquered. Therefore, the hostile ship and its unidentified alien pilot had to be eliminated; quickly, efficiently and without a trace.

So it was decided to send an _eraser_ after the ship, to deal with both vessel and pilot. They could not risk sending an entire ship through the anomaly – they knew nothing about its nature, and their forces were stretched thin already. The practical thing to do was send an _eraser_ in an armoured travelling suit; and that was what they did. 

Those body armours could withstand the vacuum of space and kept their bearers alive in the most inhabitable environments, from planets consisting of frozen methane ice to the inside of a volcano, and could even provide limited thrusters drive in space.

The only risk an _eraser_ had to take was being separated from the collective mind of its hive. That made each individual extremely vulnerable towards telepathic attacks. 

The personal risk for their agent didn’t bother the War-masters, though. _Erasers_ were genderless, with no significance for the genetic heritage, and therefore – albeit useful – in the end they were expendable. That was their place in the High Order: to be sacrificed for the good of the many. They knew that and were content with their role.

The War-masters chose their candidate carefully. They needed one with ample experience and of great determination, for the stakes were high. If previously unvisited parts of the galaxy became aware oft heir existence, that would mean war on many fronts. On more fronts, most likely, than they could afford. 

Their main weapons were of devastating efficiency but limited in number. And their thralls would not hesitate to betray them if they believed they could break free with outside help. For an inferior, bipedal species, they were annoyingly belligerent. But again, all mammals were; they lacked the discipline higher developed species were born with. Life sciences experts were in agreement that it was a genetic trait; most likely the result of their chaotic method of procreation.

But even inferior species could win the upper hand if they had high enough numbers – _and_ time enough to prepare themselves. The Tactical Division couldn’t do anything about their numbers – not _yet_ anyway – but they could prevent them from having _time_. They were not allowed to learn about the threat represented by the High Order… not until it was too late.

The agent they chose had already carried out several difficult missions successfully. It had no name; neither of them had. Each individual was marked by a unique telepathic signature that was recognized by the others immediately, together with the specific signatures of the hive, the gender – or the lack thereof, neither of which could be recognized by outward signs – and those of the caste to which the individual belonged.

Aside from being genderless drones, _erasers_ usually came from the caste of soldiers; although a few of them were also military scientists. Some missions demanded special training and successful warfare was a highly delicate matter.

This particular agent was no scientist – there was no need for one. The low-ranking technicians had extrapolated the likely travel route of the small ship – assuming it _had_ survived crossing the anomaly – and prepared the _eraser_ ’s armoured suit with the coordinates that would enable it to follow the same route. All it had to do was to travel across the tear in space-time, find its target and destroy it – together with its own self.

A return was neither expected nor desired. A track leading back to the High Order was to be avoided at any costs. The _eraser_ knew that and had made the necessary precautions.

When the preparations were finished, came the complicated procedure to transplant the _eraser_ ’s brain and inner organs into its new, heavily armoured body. The fact that its natural limbs had already been removed for the sake of a previous mission made it easier to adapt to the bizarre, bipedal structure. That it had already gathered experience with bipedal locomotion was only an added bonus. In its new body not only was it nearly indestructible, it also wouldn’t be recognized by species.

The melding with the armour took it less than half a standard sub-cycle; it was used to the procedure. When the integration was complete, a scout ship took it to the rim of the anomaly and ejected it right into the wide gap in space-time. 

From then on, it was on its own… as always on such a mission.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
As expected, Ianto found the nightly walk through the empty streets relaxing. He knew Jack didn’t like when he took a stroll through town at night on his own, but that was ridiculous. Not even such a leisurely walk would take him longer than thirty-five minutes to reach his flat, and he could take care of himself. He had a can of Weevil spray at hand, and he had a stun gun on him, as always. Jack was just being overprotective; had always had a tendency for it, but not to such extremes.

He had become like this after his return. He still had not spoken in detail about what had happened to him during The Year That Never Way. But Ianto – and indeed all the senior Torchwood staff, which included him, Tosh, Owen and, surprisingly enough, Rhys – knew the bare bones of it. From Martha Jones.

They just pretended that they didn’t, because they all knew it would make Jack uncomfortable. And while they were still mildly pissed off at him for having left them without a word, they didn’t want to make it unnecessarily difficult for him. He’d had to deal with enough changes since his return.

Of course, Ianto was fairly certain that Jack knew that they knew and that he, too, was only faking ignorance. The entire situation was beyond twisted: masks behind masks behind masks, in more layers than a German _Baumstamm_ cake. Unfortunately, neither of them was ready to – or capable of – laying everything open and discussing things as sensible people would do. That was _not_ the Torchwood way.

Well, Tosh probably would, Ianto admitted ruefully, but she was hopelessly outnumbered by three stubborn men who would not listen. Sometimes Ianto honestly asked himself how Tosh managed to remain sane, caught between him, Jack and Owen. Being a genius – and completely dead to the world when she was working – was probably helpful.

A beeping sound he momentarily couldn’t quite identify interrupted his thoughts. He patted down his pockets to find whichever Torchwood-related gizmo might be making the noise – and found, rather unsurprisingly, that it was the Rift activation detector. The one he still had from Torchwood London. And it was twinkling and beeping like crazy. Like one of those silly computer games his nephew Daffy so loved to play.

“Ah, hell,” Ianto said resignedly, realising what this meant: no rest for the wicked. He found his mobile phone and hit the speed dial.

Sally picked up his call immediately.

“Do you have something?” Ianto asked without preamble.

“Rift spike,” Sally gave him the exact location; it was uncomfortably close to the place where he lived. “A rather hefty one; something has come through. Something big.”

“Define _big_ ,” Ianto said.

“Not big like Jenny’s ship,” Sally clarified. “But definitely bigger than the usual flotsam and jetsam. Most likely bigger than the random pieces of alien tech we get all the time, but I can’t tell you _how_ much bigger.”

“Can it be something living?” Ianto asked, mildly concerned now.

Their recent experiences with a Nostrovite couple in the spawning frenzy had made them all very suspicious about possible visiting aliens crossing the Rift. _That_ visit had cost the city of Cardiff three lives and the Torchwood team weeks of painstaking clean-up.

“Inconclusive data,” Sally replied. "Jack’s on his way to take a look at the problem. He told me to tell _you_ not to start investigating on your own, just because the spike happened in your neighbourhood.”

“Well, if _that_ isn’t the pot calling the kettle black,” Ianto muttered.

“Sure it is,” Sally agreed, “but _he_ gets up again when he gets himself killed – _you_ won’t.”

“He still has to die first, though,” Ianto said dryly, and that was something Sally couldn’t really argue with. “Has he called in Andy?”

He very much doubted that Jack would have, but one could always hope. Sally’s negative answer nipped that hope in the bud, though.

“All right,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “Send Andy after Jack. I’ll go there, too, since it isn’t far from here.”

Sally acknowledged the order (unlike Jack, she’d never think of trying to talk him out of something) and hung up on him. Ianto took out his stun gun – regretting that he didn’t have a real weapon on him – and headed towards the location Sally had given him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack needed approximately fifteen minutes to reach the coordinates where the latest Rift spike had been located. It was a quiet little lane, which he recognized as the one running behind the street where he knew Ianto’s flat to be. Perhaps if he dealt with the Rift alert quickly and efficiently, he could drop by afterwards and see how Ianto was doing.

Speaking of which… he touched his earpiece as an unpleasant thought occurred to him.

“Sally, has Ianto called you in the last ten minutes?”

“Yeah, he’s just called in,” came Sally’s answer. “He wanted to know if we've had any Rift activity since he left.”

“But how on Earth could he know…” Jack trailed off and then swore in a language that wouldn’t even exist until several millennia in the future. “He must have taken that damned Rift activity monitor with him again. When did you speak with him?”

“Perhaps ten minutes ago,” Sally replied.

“Dammit!” Jack grabbed a fistful of his own hair and pulled on it in frustration. “That means he must’ve gotten here before me. I should have called PC Andy; together, we could search the place much faster.”

“I’ve already alerted him,” Sally told him. “Ianto’s orders. It’ll take him another twenty minutes to reach your position, though. He’s just left home.”

“Okay, that can’t be helped now,” Jack was thinking furiously. “I’ll try to find Ianto. I’m right behind his house, but I don’t think he’d have gone home as he ought to.”

“He probably would have, had _you_ not gone out to save the world all on your lonesome again,” Sally answered dryly. “I’ll try to reach him on the phone; and I’ll tell Andy to hurry up.”

“Don’t bother,” Jack said grimly, having reached the end of the little lane as he was still speaking. “Call Owen. I’ve just found Ianto… and it ain’t looking good.”

He went down on one knee to roll the slumped body he’d nearly stumbled over onto its back. Ianto’s head flopped to the side; his eyes were staring somewhere beyond Jack’s head into the darkness, wide open and unseeing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** disturbing images in this chapter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 05**

The news that the Torchwood Director had been found unconscious in a small lane near his flat, in the middle of the night, has caused an uproar with the Cardiff Police… to put it mildly. Saying that it was the sensation of the night watch would have been more accurate. Everybody knew Ianto Jones, from the time when he’d been merely the general support officer of the Torchwood gang, and everybody liked him. His sharp suits, quiet snark and phenomenal coffee were the stuff of legends.

The fact that said coffee had usually been laced with Retcon to make constables and detectives conveniently forget things like carnage caused by murderous aliens was largely unknown.

Largely but not by all. Detective Swanson, the Torchwood liaison of the police force, was well aware of it. She even agreed, most of the time. There were things ordinary coppers just weren’t supposed to know. Sometimes she wished _she_ could forget the things she’d got to see due to her association with Torchwood, but that was not an option.

 _Her_ job was to _know_ such things.

“I wonder who would have anything against Jones?” her secretary and flatmate, Eiry Conway, said, clearly perplexed. “I mean, I’d understand if somebody wanted to knock out _Harkness_ ; the man has made annoying the hell out of people to a form of art, but _Jones_?”

“It might not be personal,” Tim Cochrane, the SOCO on night watch, guessed. “Perhaps they aimed at Torchwood in general; there are a lot of people with an old grudge or two.”

“Or he was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” Trefor Pugh, Swanson’s second-in-command, shrugged. “Even the Torchwood Director can have a case of bad luck.”

“Possibly… although not very likely,” Swanson turned to Cochrane. “Have you found anything at the crime scene?”

The scruffy little SOCO shook his head. “Not a thing; of course, I wasn’t there long. Davidson and Lloyd were already there, with another one of those spooky-doos, wielding all those weird gizmos they use when investigating something.”

“Another grand entrée from Harkness, then?” Swanson asked with a wry smile.

Cochrane shook his head again. “Not this time. He only had eyes for Jones. If it were someone else, I’d almost say he was panicking. But Harkness doesn’t panic.”

“Not usually,” Swanson agreed. “He might be making an exception this time, though.”

“Because of Jones?” Detective M'Benga, a slender black man with a clean-shaven head, asked in surprise. “They’ve got a thing running? That’s odd.”

“Why would it be?” Detective Flores shrugged; he wasn’t a fan of Torchwood in general and even less of Captain Harkness in particular. “Everyone knows that Harkness would shag everything with a pulse and perhaps a few things without one, too. Why would Jones be an exception?”

“Because he’s their boss now, and because – unlike Harkness – he’s _not_ that kind of bloke, perhaps?” their newbie, Detective Moira Fenner, asked back. “I can understand Harkness, too,” she added with dreamy eyes. “I wouldn’t want to lose Jones, either; that boy is absolutely gorgeous.”

“Can we stop the drooling and the gossip for a moment and focus on the facts?” Swanson asked, a lot sharper than intended; whether she was willing to admit or not, she was worried about the young Torchwood director, too. “Where have they taken Jones?”

“To _St. Helen’s_ ,” Eiry Conway replied. “Doctor Harper said that the Torchwood base doesn’t have the right facilities to treat a comatose patient, and as they already work with some of the doctors there, that was the most logical arrangement.”

Swanson nodded. “Right. I remember. I’ll go to _St. Helen’s_ then and see if I can get anything out of Harkness. Perhaps the concern for Jones will make him a bit more cooperative than usual. When I’m back, I want every detail about this case, no matter how small or insignificant it seems, on my desk. Understood?”

The others nodded in unison and were off to do their jobs. Swanson headed for the garage to get her car.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The emergency call reached Tom Milligan in one of the better restaurants of Cardiff – generally known among the locals as _that French place_ , as very few could actually pronounce its name – where he was having a late dinner with Martha Jones and Doctor Fox. A _very_ late one; but again, he and Emilia had a lot to catch up with… mostly from the “talking shop” category, as they didn’t want to discuss personal matters in front of a third party.

They had just run out of career-related news, and the discussion was turning to Emilia’s current project at the UNIT base, when Tom’s phone rang. He answered it, listened to someone with a frown, asked a few questions before disconnecting, and then rose from his seat.

“I’m sorry, Em,” he said to his ex, “but I have to go.” Looking at Martha, he added. “Ianto’s been attacked. They’ve brought him to _St. Helen’s_ , and Owen needs my help.”

Martha jumped to her feet. “I’ll go with you.”

“That’s not necessary,” Tom replied. “Angie is on duty tonight; between the three of us, we can surely treat a single patient. Even if it’s our boss.”

“Sure, but _Jack_ will need me,” Martha said. “If Ianto is in a bad shape, Jack will be devastated. Ianto is his lifeline; he can’t go on without him.”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t really think that Jack would be in life-threatening danger,” he phrased his comment very carefully because of Em’s presence. Jack’s immortality was still a secret, and it was supposed to remain one.

“Not physically,” Martha allowed, “but he’s in a fragile state of mind. Has been since… well, since he came back. He will need a friend right now. Let’s pay the bill; we can drop Em off at her hotel on our way to the hospital.

The other two agreed with the suggestion, and soon they were on their way to _St. Helen’s_ , reaching the parking lot at the same time as Detective Swanson.

“Any news?” Swanson asked.

Tom shrugged. “I just got the call. Let’s see the patient first, shall we? I suppose he’s in one of the private rooms.”

Swanson nodded. “Follow me. I know a shortcut through the basement.”

The others didn’t ask _how_ she’d come to know such shortcuts. Instead, they followed her through the basement which, as Tom mentally noted, was in an inexcusable shape – for a hospital anyway. He started worrying in earnest. If Ianto survived the attack itself, he might still die because of the general lack of hygiene in the hospital itself. He’d have to see that their young boss got to a better clinic, as soon as possible.

Fortunately, the private rooms were in a much better shape, he found. Impeccable, in fact, and Tom released a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. There were two beds in Ianto’s room, one of them empty, the other one occupied by Ianto himself, wearing one of those ugly hospital scrubs, as the others hadn’t had the chance to fetch him something of his own.

Other than being unconscious, he seemed unharmed, as if he were simply sleeping. Not that it could have been a pleasant sleep, though; his expression was tense, his brows were drawn together, his lips pressed into a thin line, and his forehead was damp with cold sweat, plastering his hair to his pasty skin. There were electrodes attached to various parts of his body, transmitting readings to a strange-looking portable scanner of supposedly alien origins, the readings of which Owen was studying with an unhappy scowl on his face, while Angie – Dr. Connolly – was making notices by hand into an old-fashioned notebook.

Jack was sitting at Ianto’s bedside, holding the younger man’s lifeless hand in his larger ones; his eyes were red-rimmed, although he tried to keep his calm. Martha didn’t buy his brave act for a moment, of course; she was probably the only one who knew what it meant for Jack to see Ianto like this.

Owen shot her and Tom a relieved look but tried to hide his concern behind his usual acerbic mask.

“’Bout time you showed up, Milligan,” he snapped. “You’re the one with recent A&E practice. I need pointers.”

Tom ignored the irascible tone of his fellow doctor and checked both the readouts and the more conservative notes of Dr. Connolly. Twice.

“There’s nothing that would explain why he’s comatose,” he concluded with a frown. “All his readings check out completely normal; save for the limited brain activity, that is.”

“Save for that, yeah,” Owen agreed. “Any idea what might have caused it?”

“Severe head trauma would do it,” Tom began, but Owen shook his head.

“We found no sign that would indicate a head injury.”

“Not even blunt trauma,” Angie added. “Physically, his brain is unharmed, just like the rest of him. We couldn’t find any kind of physical injury.”

“Lack of oxygen for an extended period of time could be another cause,” Tom tried to think out loud, but Owen shook his head again.

“ _That_ would leave traces in the lungs. Which there aren’t.”

“Then there’s only one answer left,” Martha said. “It must have been a telepathic attack. That would explain these strange brain patterns here,” she indicated the graphic representation on the viewscreen of Owen’s scanner.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Tom asked, a bit sceptically.

Martha nodded. “I once visited a word with the Doctor, in the far future, where memory wipes and suppressing one’s emotions were a common form of punishment. These patterns clearly show a similar kind of manipulation.”

“You mean someone – or something – messed around with Ianto’s brain?” Jack asked, shocked but not particularly surprised.

Telepathic attacks were nothing new for him. As a Time Agent, he had even been trained to withstand them – or to _perform_ them. He knew that – like any other Torchwood One employee – Ianto had basic psychic training that _should_ have at least partially protected him from such attacks; _if_ he knew he was being attacked in the first place.

“It looks like that, yeah,” Martha replied grimly, “although I can’t say how it was possible. Contemporary humans don’t have the mental powers to do something like this; and I don’t know of any existing technology that could do it.”

“Neither do I, and that includes the alien tech we keep safely stored in the Hub,” Jack said.

“How did it happen, then?” Martha asked.

Jack shrugged. “We did have a Rift spike some fifteen minutes before finding him. A big one. Something – or somebody – definitely came through.”

“Do you have the location?” Swanson asked.

“Right where Jack found Teaboy,” Owen answered grimly. “In that dark little lane directly behind his flat.”

“But why would an alien attack him?” Swanson shook her head in bewilderment, remembering her colleagues asking the same… well, without the _alien_ part. “He might be the Torchwood Director, but I seriously doubt that any intergalactic villains would be aware of that and target him specifically. He could hardly have the same reputation outside this planet _you_ are supposed to have,” she added, glancing at Jack, who nodded glumly.

“Unless John Hart decided to pay us a little revenge,” Owen commented. “He didn’t take it well when Jack refused to leave us – especially Ianto – for going on a grand galactic adventure with him.”

“He’d certainly love to do something like that,” Jack allowed, “but not even he does have a strong enough mind to cause this kind of damage. He’s a fairly common sort of guy as abilities are concerned.”

“Your ex is all kinds of things none of them exactly common,” Owen snorted.

“Perhaps,” Jack admitted. “But he still doesn’t have the strength of mind to do this.”

“I don’t think it was a personal attack, or that Ianto had been specifically targeted,” Martha interfered. “Perhaps all our hypothetical alien wanted was information. It might not even realize that its telepathy is disruptive for the human brain.”

“In which case we should prepare for more such victims,” Owen commented darkly.

“That possible?” Swanson found it a bit hard to believe, although the Torchwood gang seemed to find it normal… well, what counted as normal for _Torchwood_ anyway.

“It’s known to have happened before,” Martha answered with a helpless shrug. “Brain waves can be every bit as incompatible as different blood types.”

“Let’s assume you’re right,” Tom’s voice revealed that he didn’t truly believe her. “How does that help us… and Ianto?”

“I’m not sure,” Martha admitted. “If we’re _very_ lucky, though, Ianto might not actually be brain-damaged… just in shock. In which case we might cajole him out of hiding.”

“Any ideas _how_ we’re supposed to do that?” Tom asked.

Martha nodded. “With _we_ , I actually meant _Jack_. He’s the closest to Ianto from us all; and he’s mildly telepathic.”

“You are?" Tom looked at Jack in surprise. Jack nodded.

“Lowest possible level only, but yeah, I am. It’s worth a try.”

“What do you mean?” Owen frowned. “Are you gonna perform the Vulcan mind-meld with Teaboy?”

“I wish I could,” Jack answered sourly. “That would make things a lot easier.”

“How do you intend to do it then?” Owen demanded.

“I honestly don’t know where to even start,” Jack confessed.

“Oh, c’mon, Jack, you know you can do it,” Martha said in a determined, no-nonsense manner. “You managed to reach my Mum on the _Valiant_ ; even Tish, though you didn’t know them back then, not really.”

“Those were extraordinary circumstances,” Jack said evasively.

Martha raised a surprised eyebrow. “And these are not?”

“Not for Torchwood, actually,” Owen muttered under his breath. “Having your mind wiped is the average, run-of-the-mill event around here. Being obsessed by alien sex gas and killing blokes with orgasms… now _that_ 's a bit more interesting.”

Martha roiled her eyes and ignored him, turning to Jack encouragingly. “You can do this, Jack! You _can_ reach Ianto, I know you can! Just focus and try to find his presence in your thoughts… in your heart.”

“Assuming I do have one,” Jack muttered self-deprecatingly.

Martha shook her head angrily. “I’m not playing this game with you, not now. You do love him, don’t you?”

For a moment, the entire sick room became eerily silent. No-one else would have had the brazenness to ask Jack Harkness, the king of obfuscating, _that_ question. But all had realized by now that he and Martha Jones had a special closeness that enabled her to say things the others wouldn’t dare… and even receive an answer, most of the time.

After that eerie moment, Jack nodded wordlessly, effectively wiping the smirk from the one or other face with that simple gesture. Then he tried to focus, just as he had been taught in the training facility of the Time Agency in his long-gone youth – three thousand years in everyone else’s future.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Sara Lloyd and Andy Davidson returned from the crime scene to a virtually empty Hub. Only Sally was holding down the fort, as Owen had gone to _St. Helen’s_ with Jack and Ianto. Lloyd vanished in her DNA-lab at once, to examine any possible trails she and Cochrane from SOCO had collected, while Andy joined Sally in the main working area for a cup of coffee and a bit of gossip.

Between the two of them a mutual interest had begun to grow in the recent couple of months. While they were both too careful to jump into an office romance headfirst, they definitely enjoyed the way leading to it.

Besides, office romances were the only kind of romance a Torchwood agent could truly hope to have. The job was too demanding to leave time and room for any outside partners; and then there was the necessary secrecy. Why, they even had to give Mike Halloran, Beth’s husband, some carefully edited information about the nature of their work, in order to keep their marriage going – and the truly dangerous secrets confidential – despite the fact that Beth only ran the cover shop.

Originally Andy had been more than reluctant to join the ‘spooky-dos’ as he’d called Torchwood. With Gwen and her constant insubordination (which he had to smooth over all the time) out of the way of promotion, he could have made Desk Sergeant in no time. Perhaps even fulfil his long-nurtured dream to become Detective. He’d seen no reason why he should leave the police force right then.

It had been Ianto’s powers of persuasion that had finally made him accept the job. That, and the fact that Rhys had joined, too. Andy liked Rhys, always had, and was glad to see that Rhys had finally gotten over Gwen, who really hadn’t deserved his devotion, and found himself a nice girl who knew to value a decent bloke.

Just as Andy hoped to have found the right girl. That Sally was smarter and better educated didn’t bother him; he’d always liked smart chicks. Smart blondes especially, as they proved the old cliché a lie; and Sally was not only smart and sweet, she could also be tough as nails if she had to. She’d been UNIT, after all, and even civilian UNIT personnel were generally trained to face alien invasions and the likes. 

Andy found the combination incredibly sexy. He was even turned on by the little frown lines between Sally’s brows, as she was checking the readings on her surveillance computer.

“More Rift activity,” he asked. Sally shook her head, without looking up to him. 

“No,” this is something different,” she replied absent-mindedly. “Some kind of signal I’ve never seen before.”

“Where does it come from?” Andy asked.

“That’s the weird part of it,” Sally tried to triangulate the origins of the unknown signal. “It comes from somewhere within the Hub itself.”

Andy paled as the possible meaning of that fact became clear to him.

“Have we been infiltrated?”

“Possibly,” Sally said grimly. “I can’t tell anything for sure before I’d have located the source of the signal.”

“Should we call in the others?” Andy asked. “At least Tosh or Jack?”

Sally shook her head again. “Tosh is gonna work for two when Trevor goes to London, and I doubt that anything short the end of the world would be enough to remove Jack from Ianto’s bedside. We’ll do this on our own.”

“How?” Andy had his reasonable doubts about the idea. “Do you know how huge the Hub is? We have no means to keep any potential intrudes trapped while we’re scanning room after room for the source of your signal.”

“Yes we have,” Sally replied calmly. “All we need to do is to initiate an emergency lockdown.”

“What?” Andy all but yelled. “That would mean we won’t be able to leave for at least twenty-four hours – unless Ianto comes and lets us out. Or Jack. Or Tosh.”

“Which they won’t do, not with a possible intruder lurking somewhere within,” Sally pointed out. “This is the only way to keep things contained. Not even phone signs can get through a total lockdown, and most certainly no unknown signals. The secure landline in Ianto’s office would be our only connection to the outside.”

“Is it really necessary:” Andy was still not comfortable with the idea of being locked into the Hub hermetically, together with potentially hostile aliens.

“Afraid so,” Sally replied with grim determination. “Trust me in this; I’ve survived one alien invasion – barely – and am not eager to repeat the experience. The second time we might not be so lucky.”

Andy sighed. “All right, then; do it, if you think you have to.”

Sally was already typing away on her keyboard. A moment later, the lights of alert started flashing all over the Hub, and big, blinking letters flashed over every singly viewscreen.

TORCHWOOD LOCKDOWN

At the same moment, the cog door rolled closed solidly.

“Torchwood lockdown,” the artificial voice of Mainframe stated the obvious, before the passive scanners would come alive again.

“What now?” Andy asked, trying to fight his claustrophobia and losing, big time.

Sally gave her a feral grin. “Now we’ll go hunting,” she replied, picking up a handheld scanner and a gun.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The car park at the far end of the dark little lane behind his flat is chocking down with rain. The rain has soaked his hair, plastering his wet locks against his chilly face, and dripping into his eyes, his mouth… choking him. He cannot breathe; he is shaking violently, as if having a seizure. He knows he’s done something horrible, something unforgivable – but for the life of his, he cannot remember _what_ it was.

Then a sudden flash of memory comes to him, like a lightning bolt illuminating the dark, cloudy night. The memory of a woman, more a girl, actually – young, slender and blonde, moving around with easy grace. Then she gets hit from behind, swirled around and pressed up against the wall.

His hands around her neck, shaking her, chocking her with horrible delight. Her eyes, their colour not recognizable in the ghastly yellow light of a far-away street lantern, but clearly something pale, perhaps blue or grey, wide with horror before turning glassy and lifeless in no time.

The weight of her pliant body weighing down on his aching arms before he drops her onto a rotting, rat-infested mattress against the dark alley wall. There she lies, her limbs twisted into an unnatural position she wouldn’t be able to bear alive, her eyes unseeing, her pretty face a frozen mask of terror.

And then there’s nothing but the rain again, pounding down on him mercilessly, as if trying to wash him clean from what he’s done. But there’s no cleansing for him, no absolution, no hope. He’s murdered the blonde girl – and he doesn’t know why.

He wracks his brain to find an explanation while the rain is still falling down onto him but finds none. The events keep replaying before his eyes in a vicious cycle, again and again; the girl shows up, gets hit, then he throws her against the wall and chokes her. Every single time. There’s no answer, no reason – just the bare facts.

And he knows that – given the chance – he’d do it again. Because, in a dark and twisted way, it felt good to feel her desperate struggling cease. To see the life fading away from her horrified eyes. He _enjoyed_ it.

He enjoyed it; therefore he must be a monster.

Something stirs at the far end of the dark alley; something or rather someone. The person slowly comes closer, and now he could see that it’s a tall, broadly built man, wearing a greatcoat that seems somehow familiar. He seems to recognize the handsome face of the man, and the bright blue eyes; brighter than any man ought to have.

Brighter than he’s ever seen in the face of any other man.

And suddenly he also remembers who the girl was.

“Jack, help me!” he moans in despair. “I’ve killed Jenny!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack, the doctors and Simpson stared at each other with open-mouthed shock as Ianto bolted upright in his hospital bed, his face white with terror, eyes wide open and unseeing.

“What has he just said?” Swanson demanded.

Jack shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know any more than you do. I can’t imagine it, though. Ianto’s not a killer.”

“Well, he wasn’t happy about Jenny at all, that much is clear,” Owen muttered. “Still…”

“Why don’t you call Tosh?” Martha suggested. “That way you can make sure that Jenny’s right.” She didn’t seem to believe the alternative, either.

Owen nodded jerkily and whipped out his mobile phone. Having had a short conversation in muted tones in the farthest corner of the room, he soon returned to the others with obvious relief.

“Well, Jenny’s sitting in Tosh’s living room, eating bananas and laughing her head off watching _East Enders_ ,” he told them.

“That’s odd,” Tom commented with a frown. “What’s Ianto talking about, then?”

“It could be a telepathic echo from the attacker,” Martha guessed. “Or he could have witnessed something traumatic, and his mind is trying to deal with it the best way it can.”

“Perhaps we should check if there have been any assault cases in close proximity to where he was found,” Swanson suggested. “He could have seen something and blacked out as a result. I’ll ask Eiry…”

“Not necessary; Sally can get us the info a lot faster,” Jack touched his earpiece. “Sally, this is Jack…”

There was no answer, and he frowned. He tried it again, but to no end. He tried his mobile phone, too, but all he got was a NO CONNECTION AVAILABLE message flashing across the small screen.

“Definitely odd,” he muttered, trying to get his wrist strap connected to Mainframe – and failing.

“What do you mean?” Swanson asked.

“They’ve apparently put the Hub under lockdown,” Jack explained.

Swanson’s eyebrows drew together. “What for?”

“I don’t know, but they wouldn’t do it, unless they wanted to keep something – or someone – from entering the base,” Jack replied worriedly.

“Or from _leaving_ it,” Owen added.

Jack nodded. “Whatever it is, it cannot be good. Sally isn’t one who’d panic easily. She survived the Sycorax invasion, after all, and that without needing any shrinks afterwards to deal with the trauma. She’s tough.”

“So how are you gonna find out what’s happening?” Swanson asked. “Last time you got locked into your own base we needed to read through Emily Dickinson’s assorted poems…”

Jack winced at that particular memory. Suzie’s betrayal – and how completely she had managed to fool them all – was still a sore topic with him.

“We’ve installed a few additional security measures since last time,” he explained. “The secure landline in the office ought to work under any circumstances; and I’ll be able to end the lockdown manually from the outside. Well, Tosh and I will. At least two of the three team leaders have to enter their codes and go through retina scan to cancel the lockdown. First, though, I need to learn what’s really happening.”

“And I’ll have Eiry check the latest assault cases in the area,” Swanson said.

They grabbed their respective phones. A few moments later they were looking at each other with grim faces that seemed eerily alike.

“No-one answers the phone in the Hub,” Jack said. “I’m gonna alert Tosh and check what’s going on there. You guys stay with Ianto.”

“No way!” Martha declared with determination. “Tom and Owen can babysit Ianto with Angie’s help. You might need _me_ , though.”

After a moment of hesitation Jack nodded. He trusted Martha unconditionally. He couldn’t say the same about the other two. He might have forgiven Owen, but the doctor had killed him, at a time when his immortality hadn’t been known to the team; and he found it a lot harder to _forget_ than to forgive.

“And watch him closely,” Swanson added. “Anything he happens to say might be of importance.”

“Why?” Tom asked in surprise.

The Detective’s expression was shuttered. “I’ve just spoken to my PA. A young, blonde woman was found in the alley near the car park at the end of the lane where Ianto had supposedly been attacked. She was murdered.”

All eyes turned to Ianto in shock. He’d fallen back onto his pillow and was unresponsive again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** gratutious technobabble.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 06**

“I want the murder victim to be brought to the Hub,” Jack told Detective Swanson as they were climbing into the SUV, followed by Martha. “If an alien is involved, the case is ours.”

“And if Jones personally is involved, it’s ours,” Swanson riposted, not backing off an inch.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Why would Ianto murder someone he doesn’t even know?”

“We don’t know _that_ ,” Swanson pointed out. “We still haven’t got an ID on the victim, so we cannot refuse the possibility out of hand that we are dealing with a regular murder case. As for the why… don’t take it personally, Captain, but in my opinion not a single one of you is completely sane. You won’t be able to work for Torchwood and do the things you’re doing if you were.”

“There is that,” Jack admitted ruefully.

“Besides,” Swanson continued, “we can hardly bring any dead bodies to your base for investigation while said base is under lockdown because of a possible alien infiltration. So let’s see what’s going on there before we get all territorial and start fighting over the case, shall we?”

“She’s right, Jack,” Martha said gently. “Priorities, remember?”

Jack nodded reluctantly. His instincts were screaming at him to throw his weight around and take over the murder investigation, to clear Ianto from the slightest shadow of suspicion, but right now he had more urgent things to do. The Hub was his top priority, especially as Ianto was out of the equation. They needed to know what was going on.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
They found the invisible lift off-line, which was not really surprising. The lockdown wouldn’t be of much use with a direct way in and out of the Hub, after all. The same was true for the tourist office, but at least _there_ they had an emergency back door now, thanks to Ianto’s thoroughness and Tosh’s technical ingenuity.

“There are only three people on this planet – or outside of it, for that matter – whom the system would let in during a lockdown,” Jack explained, laying his flat hand on the surface of what appeared to be some small electronic panel; a dysfunctional one. “Tosh, Ianto and me.”

The panel came alive, scanning his palm, the digital image of which appeared on the screen in a multitude of shockingly bright yellow pixels, and a flat electronic voice said, “Handprint identification positive: Captain Jack Harkness, Command Level, Number Three. Please prepare for retina identification scan.”

Jack stepped closer to the panel, enduring the unknown sort of beam scanning his eye with a slight grimace.

“Retina identification positive: Captain Jack Harkness, Command Level, Number Three,” said the artificial voice. “Please give password code for voiceprint identification.”

“Captain Jack Harkness; identification code BOE-53-slash-one-eight-nine-seven-slash-Cymru-blue,” Jack said in a clipped tone.

There was a short pause; then the computer voice announced emotionlessly, “Voiceprint identification positive: Captain Jack Harkness, Command Level, Number Three. You may enter Security area Oh-One. Limited intercom use within the base will be provided.”

At the same time, the sealed door of the tourist office swung open noiselessly. Swanson looked into the darkness behind in suspicion.

“What’s the meaning of all the technobabble?” she asked.

“It means we can go as far as the tourist office and have CCTV and comm access within the Hub,” Jack explained. “That will help us to find out what the actual emergency is and why they found it necessary to put the base under lockdown.”

“You mean we can’t even enter the Hub itself?” Swanson clarified.

Jack shook his head. “No. For that, we’d need either Tosh or Ianto… well, Tosh, in this case. The system would only lift the lockdown before it has run its twenty-four-hour-cycle if two of us with common level clearance order it, both undergoing a triple identification check.”

“That’s grossly paranoid,” commented Swanson.

Jack shrugged. “Perhaps. But we’ve made really bad experiences in the past; this, hopefully, will help us to avoid further such crisises.”

He walked into the harmless-looking tourist office, which had definitely gained a pleasant feminine touch since first Emma and then Beth had taken it over, and sat down behind the reception desk. The big, outdated computer monitor – not the usual flat screen from the Hub but a real monstrosity from the 1990s – came alive, the words TORCHWOOD LOCKDOWN flashing across the screen.

A screen that clearly was capable of tricks it shouldn’t be, because when Jack pressed both his thumbs to if, the lockdown announcement vanished from it, replaced by the acknowledgement of his identity: ACCESS PROVIDED: CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS.

“Now we are making some headway,” Jack muttered, hitting some keys on the seemingly aged keyboard.

The image onscreen changed again, this time showing the CCTV feed from the main Hub. In the right upper corner the symbol of a loudspeaker appeared, and Jack nodded in satisfaction.

“Sally, this is Jack,” he said. “What happened?”

To his surprise, it was Lloyd’s voice that answered.

“Captain, this is Lloyd. You won’t reach them via the comm system; they’re down in the sub-basements.”

“Why?” Jack asked with a frown.

“I have no idea,” Lloyd confessed. “I was working in the DNA-lab when I got sealed in. Sally said something about a possible alien intrusion before the connection broke, but I could not discover any lifesigns from here. Of course, my scanner doesn’t have a very long range; it’s supposed to work _inside_ the lab, as you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jack sighed.

Swanson looked at him impatiently. “So, what are you gonna do about it?”

“Nothing,” Jack replied grimly. “I can’t risk calling Tosh in to lift the lockdown before communication with Sally and Andy is re-established and I can be sure that it’s safe”

“So we just wait here?” Swanson demanded.

“You don’t have to stay here,” Jack said. “All we can do is to wait, and Martha and I can do that on our own. There’s no reason to waste your time; I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

Swanson gnawed her lower lip in frustration for a moment or two; then she nodded reluctantly. As much as she hated to admit, Jack was right. She needed to deal with the paperwork concerning the newest murder case – not to mention all the older cases piling depressingly on her desk – and the sooner she got that out of her hair the better it would be for her.

“All right,” she said. “But if there’s any news…”

“…I’ll call you,” Jack finished for her.

With that promise, Swanson left, and Jack sat down behind the counter and prepared himself for a long, boring wait. He hated being reduced to the role of a watcher, but at the moment there was nothing he could do about it. At least he had Martha as company.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the meantime, Sally and Andy had reached Sublevel Two, where random pieces of alien tech were waiting to be categorized, neutralized if necessary, and put away in the Physical Archives that filled many more, deeper levels of the sub-basement. They had found nothing suspicious on Sublevel One, where the cells were located – currently mostly empty, save for a few Weevils.

Even the Weevils had been relatively calm. Janet, their long-time resident, had growled at them, as she always did when anyone but Owen would approach her cell, but that had been all.

“I wonder where they came from,” Andy commented as they were descending the spiral staircase to the next level. “I mean, I know they’ve come through the Rift, but they must have a home planet _somewhere_.”

“Or _somewhen_ ,” Sally replied absently, her eyes glued to the lifesign detector. “Mark Lynch, that insane real estate bloke with the Weevil Fight Club, believed that they were actually humans – or rather what humans would become in the far future.”

“Could that be true?” Andy asked with a frown. The thought was not a pleasant one.

Sally shook her head. “Nah; according to Owen and Lloyd they’re basically reptiles, and their body chemistry clearly shows that they’ve evolved in a completely different environment. Probably on a world with a very distant or dying sun, with lots of sulphur and ammoniac in the atmosphere. That’s why they prefer the sewers, Lloyd says; it’d dark down there, and it stinks.”

Andy grinned. As funny as it sounded, it was probably true. Lloyd knew her stuff, and while she didn’t find it beneath her dignity to phrase her thoughts so that people without a PhD could also understand, she was right, most of the time.

“Any lifesigns yet?” he asked. Sally shook her head again.

“Nope. But I can still get that signal, periodically. It goes on every eight seconds for six second. Then it pauses, and in eight seconds it goes on again.”

“Some kind of distress call?” Andy guessed.

“If it is, it’s none I’ve ever heard of,” Sally answered. “The frequency is an unusual one, and so is the pattern; neither of them is in our database.”

“Can’t you triangulate it?” Andy asked.

“No; too much interference, and the walls down here are too thick,” Sally adjusted the setting of her handheld scanner to get a clearer direction. “We’ll have to follow the signal and see where it takes us.”

“Let’s hope it isn’t a trap,” Andy muttered.

“That’s what you have the big gun for,” Sally replied with a shrug.

They reached Sublevel Two and turned to the left, where Trevor’s secondary lab was situated. It wasn’t actually a _lab_ in the strictest sense of the word; rather a storeroom, in which Torchwood Three’s Number Two geek kept such pieces of alien tech that he intended to take a closer look at some indefinite later time but hadn’t had the chance to actually do so yet. 

Unlike the main lab, in which he spent most of his time – when he wasn’t out Weevil hunting – _this_ lab was cluttered with an eclectic collection of stuff, in no particular order.

At least none that Andy could have recognized at first sight.

“Strange,” he muttered. “I always thought Trevor would be nearly as anal retentive as Ianto.”

“Oh, he is; in the lab in which he actually works,” replied Sally. “The difference is that Ianto is organized by nature, while in Trevor’s case it’s mostly Torchwood One conditioning. Cluttering one’s workplace was apparently a no-go at Headquarters.”

“While making a complete mess in other, insignificant storerooms was no problem at all?” Andy eyed the chaos warily.

Sally nodded. “Which is rotten luck for us, because the dratted signal comes directly from that corner over there.”

“The one behind those big, ugly metallic spider… _things_?” Andy asked, knowing that he’d be the one expected to climb over said big, ugly metallic spider things and look for the possible source of the signal. Especially as Sally was wearing a pencil skirt today – completely unsuited for crawling over any unorganized heap of alien junk.

Being a gentleman _did_ have its disadvantages.

On the other hand, Sally in a tight pencil skirt was a sight well worth a little climbing.

His mind made up, Andy pushed his sonic rifle – manufactured by Torchwood One after Toshiko’s plans and retrieved after the Battle of Canary Wharf – in Sally’s hand.

“Do me a favour: should any of those spiders as much as twitch, shoot ‘em to pieces, all right?”

Sally laughed. “They’re not alive, you know.”

“Perhaps not,” Andy allowed. “But with alien tech, you can never know what would trigger ‘em – or what are they gonna do, once triggered.”

“That’s true,” Sally aimed the rifle at the spiders that were of the size of those modern, round hoovers that could roam a flat on their own, getting around corners and stuff. Jack called them maintenance drones, for the lack of better understanding of their possible function. “Well, what are you waiting for? We haven’t got all day.”

They actually _had_ , as it took the lockdown twenty-four hours to run its cycle, but she would have preferred to end it sooner, if she could.

“For the panic to lessen enough so that my legs would stop trembling,” Andy replied honestly.

He had learned early on in their relationship that playing the macho would not impress her at all. Honesty, on the other hand, usually did.

“Go on,” she encountered him, grinning. “I’ll change your nappies later.”

Andy forcibly suppressed all inappropriate mental images his brain chose to supply based on that promise – and there were quite a few of _those_ – before he would carefully meander through the big heap of alien junk.

No, not _junk_ , he corrected himself. The stuff that ended up here had already gone through the first level of selection, so it had to have at least _some_ potential usefulness. Personally, he couldn’t imagine what use, for example, the artefact could be that looked like two halves of a brown football (the round kind used by soccer, not the egg-shaped US-version) with a translucent sphere pulsating emerald light sandwiched between them. But he wasn’t one of the geeks, so his ignorance was understandable. 

As he passed by, the sphere began to spin, but it stopped as soon as she got four steps or so away from it. He ignored it, just like what Jack had called a Hoix signal beacon – translucent turquoise sphere with a silver antenna on top, resting on folded metallic legs. As Andy came closer to it, the legs slowly unfolded, lifting the sphere to eye level, and it began to emanate a soft pulsing turquoise light, but that was all it could do. According to Trevor, the only parts of the thing that still functioned were the proximity sensors. Sure enough, as soon as he got three steps away from it, the thing folded its telescopic legs and practically “sat down”, like a hen on its net.

Andy grinned – some of this alien stuff was downright funny – and walked around some particularly big piece of junk… and that was when he saw it. Whatever it was. A roughly rectangular box, looking like some kind of sensor grid right out of _Star Trek_. A dull grey piece of metal, charred by electronic fire.

And within the grid, something was _blinking_. It blinked steadily for eight seconds. Then it paused for six seconds. Then the cycle began anew, just as Sally had described the pattern of the unknown signal.

“I think I’ve found it,” he called to her, over the heaps of junk. “It’s some metal box, with a blinking… _thing_ inside. Seems harmless enough; unless it’s a bomb, of course.”

Which, knowing Torchwood’s record with alien encounters, wouldn’t be the first time – or the last one. They were both aware of that fact.

“I hope it’s not,” Sally replied seriously. “The vaults are strong enough to contain an explosion, but _we_ aren’t.”

“So, what are we gonna do?” Andy asked. “Shall I take it out of here and put it into the Secure Archives, or is there a chance that it would go off if I moved it?”

“I don’t know,” Sally admitted. “I guess we better leave it alone. Does it have a temporary ID sticker on it?”

“Wait a minute… yep, there it is,” Andy rattled down the numbers and Sally typed them into her Torchwood-issue PDA. “Got it?”

“Yeah,” she said with deliberate slowness, “and it ain’t good, I’m afraid. Got away from that thing, but be careful. No sudden movements, and no rattling it.”

Andy felt his panic rise again. He was an ex-constable and a field agent, used to deal with living things, not with possibly lethal tech.

Granted, said living things would sometimes shoot at him or try to eat him – Weevils and Hoix in particular, but he hadn’t forgotten the Nostrovite, either, that had thought him eligible for dinner – but that was something he could deal with. Spooky alien tech, on the other hand…

He carefully retracted his path through all the junk to where Sally was still staring at her PDA with an unhappy frown.

“What does it say?” he asked.

“According to the code, it’s part of Jenny’s navigation system,” she replied. “It used to be welded to the ship’s hull on the outside and generated a force field that would deflect micrometeorites, so that they would not damage the hull.”

Andy shook his head. “Believe me, whatever hit this piece of junk, it wasn’t a micrometeorite,” he said. “It looks rather like plasma burns to me. Besides, hasn’t Jenny’s ship been brought to the big hangar?”

Sally nodded. “It was. But Tosh and Trevor removed some damaged parts to study and to repair them if they can. This must be one of those parts, I reckon.”

“Why is it sending out a signal then?” Andy asked.

“There are two possible reasons for that, none of them good for us,” Sally answered grimly. “Come. I must contact Jack and ask for instructions. This requires a command-level decision, and with Ianto out of the equation for the time being…”

“You’ve put the Hub under lockdown,” Andy reminded her. “Which means: no phone calls in _or_ out.”

“Theoretically, that is right,” she said. “But you forget that I used to be a communications tech at UNIT London. If we go back to the main Hub, I can access the security computer in the tourist office and send Jack a distress call. They’ll have realized by now that we’re under lockdown; he’ll fetch Tosh and lift it from the outside.”

“What about the thing over there, though?” Andy made a vague gesture in the direction of the still blinking grey box. “We just leave it back there?”

“That’s the safest thing we can do with it at the moment,” Sally replied. “The geeks can find a way to switch it off, I hope. Right now, we must see to get out of here.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack and Martha had been waiting in the tourist office for almost an hour; Jack pacing up and down like a caged tiger and Martha consulting her PDA. At first they had tried to talk… that is, it had been mostly Martha, intent on easing Jack’s tension, but to no end. Jack was simply too worried to carry on a conversation. Worried about Ianto, worried about the possible reason for the lockdown, worried about the risks Sally and Andy were probably taking.

So, after a while she simply fell silent and ignored Jack’s pacing as well as she could, while mentally going over her to-do-list back in her lab at the local UNIT base. It was a long list; and the fact that she spent so much time at Torchwood didn’t help making it any shorter. She secretly admitted that she needed to set her priorities, and that they ought to be related to her actual work. She just didn’t know _how_ to do it. Jack needed her, and in a manner, she needed Jack, too. 

_End of the World Survivors Club_ – that was what Jack had called them, the two of them and her family, and it was very true, in more levels that she would care to admit. Still, she needed to do something about her working schedule, and soon.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the security screen on the counter came alive. At the same time, Jack’s mobile phone went off.

“A distress call,” Jack said, checking the display.

“Meaning what?” Martha asked.

“Meaning that Sally needs me and Tosh to come in and lift the lockdown,” Jack explained. “If she could access the security system here, though, she must be back in the main Hub area. In which case…” he leaned over the counter and hit a key. “Sally, this is Jack. I’m in the tourist office. What’s going on down there?”

“We’ve got a Level Three emergency,” Sally informed him.

“Possibly dangerous alien tech uncontained within the base,” Jack interrupted for Martha. “What kind of tech are we dealing with, Sal?”

“I’m not sure,” Sally admitted. “Mainframe has spotted some sort of signal, coming from within the Hub, aiming generally to the outside. Frequency and pattern are a combination we haven’t come across before. So I’ve ordered an emergency lockdown while we tracked down the source, Andy and I.”

“Have you found it?” Jack asked.

“Yes, Captain. It comes from a piece of alien tech, currently in Trevor’s secondary lab on Sublevel Two. As far as I can tell, it’s some kind of signal beacon, but I can’t be sure. I’m not a scientist – not _yet_ , anyway.”

The fact that she has been studying applied mathematics for the last three years was really not much help in the current situation.

“Are you sure it’s harmless?” Jack asked.

“I didn’t say it was _harmless_ ,” Sally replied sharply. “I said it’s _possibly_ a signal beacon, but it can just as well be a bomb. And even if it _is_ a signal beacon, the important question remains: who is it sending signals to and why.”

“Or whether they can receive the signals at all,” Andy’s voice added.

“Worst case scenario is: they can, _and_ they are hostile,” Jack said sourly. “Which mean we need to find a way to switch it off. I’ll call Tosh in, so that we can get inside, and then we’ll see what we can do.”

“Captain,” there was obvious hesitation in Sally’s voice, "you may wish to take precautions concerning the girl, Jenny. She stays with Tosh and would want to come in with her.”

“So what?” Jack honestly didn’t see why that would be a problem.

“Sir, the alien beacon… bomb… whatever… It’s within a piece of tech removed from Jenny’s ship,” Sally told him bluntly. “That’s how it got into the Hub to begin with.”

“ _What_?” Jack was so shocked he could barely trust his ears; and Sally wasn’t done yet.

“Captain, I know that we planned to organize spare parts for her ship from one of the London storehouses, but I think we should _not_. Not yet. If she’s an impostor, or has otherwise malevolent intentions, we should not enable her to leave the planet – or even the city – at will. In fact, putting her in one of the cells would be the safest things for us all.”

“You want me to put _the Doctor’s daughter_ in a cell, next to a Weevil?” Jack was close to losing it.

“We have no proof that she really is whom she says she is; not until the DNA-test has run its cycle,” Sally pointed out. “And even if she _is_ the Doctor’s daughter, she’s not the Doctor. Who, by the way, is not exactly a friend of Torchwood. So yes, I thing the only sensible thing would be to put her in a cell, until we can be sure about her – and until we figure out whom the device removed from her ship is signalling and why. That’s what _Ianto_ would do.”

“Because he hates the Doctor,” Jack muttered.

“He has his reasons; valid ones,” Sally answered coldly. “In case you haven’t noticed, you two and Tosh are probably the only ones here who don’t have issues with the guy. But that’s not why Ianto would put her in a cell. He may be a lot of things, but petty is not one of those things. He’d do it because it’s _necessary_. Were you not so blinded by the fact that she _might_ be the Doctor’s daughter, you’d be the first to suggest it.”

Which was very true, although Jack hated to admit it. So he reluctantly called Tosh and asked her to come in and bring Jenny with her, _for safety reasons_ , as he put it. Then he made a second round of calls, informing Trevor and Mickey that their trip to London had been cancelled due to an emergency, and asking them to come in as soon as possible. They grumbled, as he had expected them to do, but promised to hurry up.

Finally he called Swanson on a secure line, telling her about the discovery and about the doubts that had been voiced concerning Jenny.

“I see,” Swanson said thoughtfully. “What are you going to do about it?”

“There’s very little I can do, until our geeks provide us with some answers,” Jack admitted. “I’ll have to keep her contained in the Hub for a while.”

“The Weevils will be grateful for the company,” Swanson commented dryly. “But will you be able to put her in a cell at all? What little you’ve told me about her would suggest that she could beat up people twice her size with one hand bound to her back.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to _fight_ her,” Jack replied. “I’m simply gonna _order_ her into that cell. She’s indoctrinated to obey orders from a superior officer, and by the time she realizes that she’s been tricked, she’ll be put away safely.”

There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the connection.

“You’re a ruthless man, Captain Harkness,” Swanson finally said.

“Kathy, you’ve no idea just _how_ ruthless I truly am,” Jack returned grimly. “Do you want to come back when the lockdown has been lifted?”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” Swanson replied. “Right after I got in, a hone call came: Jones has vanished from the hospital.”

Jack nearly dropped the phone.

“ _What_? How could that happen? He was unconscious and had two of our doctors watching him!”

“That’s what I’m going to figure out,” Swanson told him. “All I know it that Doctor Harper was called away to help treat some Weevil victim. When he got back, less than ten minutes later, Doctor Milligan was lying on the floor, knocked out, and Jones was gone.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the pseudo-science is made up by me, and I’m not a technically savvy person, so please ignore any impossibilities I might have created. *g*
> 
>  **Warning:** disturbing images in this chapter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 07**

Martha and Jack exchanged shocked looks at this news.

“Do you believe Ianto would attack Tom, just to get out of the hospital?” Martha asked.

Jack shook his head determinedly. “No way! Ianto would never attack a team-mate. Unless…”

“Unless he was under the influence of some outside force,” Martha finished for him when he trailed out. “Do you still believe that Jenny is harmless?”

“Do _you_ think she’s behind the whole thing?” Jack asked back, and Martha thought about it for a moment before answering.

“No, I don’t,” she finally replied. “My guess would be that those aliens Jenny had managed to piss off back… well, wherever she came from, put a tracking device on her ship and somehow managed to follow the signal through the Rift.”

“And they’re searching for Jenny right now as we speak,” Jack added grimly. “They probably put up their equivalent of a WANTED poster, and are now killing blonde girls who look like her, in the hope to hit the right one eventually. And collateral damage be damned.”

“Or perhaps they use Ianto to do the dirty work for them,” Martha pointed out. “If they want to keep their existence hidden, at least for the time being, they’d need a scapegoat, and what better than a human serial killer? They’ll make him keep killing those girls till they’re sure that Jenny’s dead, and then throw him to the wolves and leave. Or don’t, depending on what they intend to do with Earth, now that they’ve found it.”

“I don’t like the idea of _that_ ,” Jack admitted, “but I don’t believe they can turn Ianto into a serial killer, either. He’s much stronger than that, and has great integrity by nature. Besides, he had special psychic training while working for Torchwood London. He’d resist, ever if it would mean to die.”

“And yet he’s already confessed having murdered Jenny,” Martha reminded him, “which means that the mental order has already been firmly placed in his mind.”

“That’s _one_ possibility,” Jack said stubbornly. “There are other possible explanations.”

“Like what?” Martha riposted.

“False memories planted in his mind through hypnosis, for starters,” Jack counted down the possibilities on the fingers of his right hand. “A mistaken conclusion from his side, having seen the body of the victim; he was pretty exhausted at the time, don’t forget it. A mere physical result of the concussion he’d suffered. Perhaps even an unintentional side effect of the telepathic attack.”

“And just how are you planning to find out the truth?” Martha was more than a little sceptical.

“Oh, there are ways and methods, thanks to all that alien tech Torchwood Three has hoarded in the last three centuries,” Jack replied, his eyes cold. “But in order to use any of that, we’ll have to find Ianto first. Preferably before the police does. Kathy may be willing to cooperate, but if Henderson decides that Ianto is his prize suspect, breaking him out of jail won’t be an easy thing.”

“Why not?” Martha asked. “Aren’t you the one who keeps saying that Torchwood is ‘above the government, beyond the police’?” she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers as she was saying that.

“True,” Jack replied, “but only when aliens are involved. Not if one of us turns out to be an ordinary serial killer.”

“Bus you’ve just said Ianto didn’t do it, haven’t you?” Martha reminded him.

“And I’m still sure he didn’t, but I’ve got to prove it,” Jack said. “Which would be a lot easier if the police didn’t get their hands on him first.”

That actually made a lot of sense, Martha had to admit.

“So, how are you planning to find him?”

“First, we need to lift the lockdown, so that we can deal with this unknown signal,” Jack replied. “And for that, we’ll need Tosh. Once within, we can use the CCTV system to search for Ianto and to coordinate the search troops.”

“I’m surprised that you aren’t already out on the streets, looking for him,” Martha commented.

“I’d like nothing more than that,” Jack admitted. “But with him out of the equation, I need to stay here and coordinate all our moves. Tosh is a genius, but not good at giving orders, and we three are the only ones with suitable authority to act on Torchwood’s behalf.”

He took out his phone and punched in Toshiko’s number. “Tosh? I need you here. We’ve got a Number Three emergency, and the Hub’s under lockdown. I need you to come in and help me lift it, preferably yesterday. No, we can’t; I’ll explain later. Oh, and bring Jenny with you. There’s something I want her to see.”

He disconnected, then speed-dialled Mickey. “Hey, Mickey Mouse, grab Trevor and go to _St. Helen’s_. Ianto’s gone; I want you to set up a search pattern, starting from the hospital. No, I’m _not_ sure what’s happened, but you _must_ find him before the police do. No; when you find him, bring him directly to the Hub. I don’t care; tell them you’re retrieving a fugitive Weevil – whatever. Just find him!”

“Jack,” Martha said gently, “they won’t be able to find him before the police. Not without help.”

Jack gave her a startled look. “What kind of help do you mean? You don’t want to get UNIT involved, do you?”

Martha shrugged. “Why not? It’s their job, as much as it’s yours… _ours_.”

“But the UNIT soldiers of the Cardiff base ain’t much use,” Jack reminded her. “Half of them haven’t even been cleared for armed duty yet.”

“That won’t lessen their ability to find a missing person,” Martha said logically. But Jack still had his doubts.

“And how are you gonna talk Colonel Ironpants into helping _me_?” he asked.

“Simply,” Martha grinned. “I’m gonna tell him that I’m doing this behind your back.”

Jack stared at her in naked administration, his own grin growing from ear to ear.

“Martha Jones, you’re truly devious, you know that? I like that in a friend and ally.”

Martha sketched a curtsey. “All part of the service, Captain. Now, let me make a phone call and see what I can do.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Less than twenty minutes alter a team of red-capped UNIT soldiers, led by Sergeant Zbrigniew and joined by Martha, who thought that her medical skills might he needed, marched through Cardiff in search for the missing Torchwood director. Mickey and Trevor did the same, and so did the police, albeit with a different motivation.

By then, Tosh had also arrived at the tourist office, with Jenny in tow.

“What happened?” she asked, while she was already typing her authorization code into the security computer.

“I’m not sure,” Jack admitted, doing the same. “Some sort of alien signal, coming from the newly collected debris.”

“And Sally felt it necessary to initiate the lockdown because of _that_?” Tosh frowned, typing in the code for a second time, to acknowledge the lifting of said lockdown.

“Hey, better safe than sorry,” Jack replied with a shrug. “Besides, that was before she’d find the source of the signal.”

“So? And where was that?” Tosh asked, hitting the Enter key.

The door of the tourist office snapped closed, while the one leading down the Hub swung open and the LOCKDOWN LIFTED sign flashed repeatedly across the security screen.

“In Trevor’s lab,” Jack said in a causal tone, but Tosh understood the ramifications of _that_ at once.

She wasn’t called a genius for nothing.

“I see,” she said slowly. “Well why don’t I go and take a look at the lab, while you show Jenny – whatever you wanted to show her?

Jack nodded. “Good idea. When you see Sally and Andy, send them after Mickey and Trevor. Andy’s an ex-cop, he’ll know best what to do.”

Tosh furrowed her brow. “What to do about _what_?”

“Mostly about how to avoid the police,” Jack was already walking down the corridor leading to the Hub. Tosh grabbed his arm.

“Jack, you’re not making sense! Why do we need to avoid the police?”

“Ianto’s missing,” Jack told her grimly. “Tom’s been attacked; knocked out cold in _St. Helen’s_ , and Ianto’s gone.”

“Oh my God!” Tosh paled but got an instant grip on her nerves. “All right; go and do what you have to do. I’ll see what I can do about that signal. Come to me when I’m done; I might have an idea how to find Ianto.”

“How?” Jack asked eagerly, but Tosh waved him off.

“Not now, Jack. Let’s deal with first things first – and hurry up!”

“I will,” Jack promised; then he turned to Jenny, his entire behaviour getting a decidedly military edge. Follow me, soldier,” he said with authority, and Jenny snapped to attention.

“Yes, _sir_!” And then she followed him indeed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
They went straight to lower levels, where the cells were situated – mostly empty at the moment, save for Janet and a couple of other Weevils, and the stray Hoix that Mickey used for garbage disposal, since the alien ate literally _everything_ they threw into its cell. Including pizza boxes.

Jenny stopped in front of Janet’s cell. The Weevil was curled up in the farthest corner and stared at her with dull, barely hostile eyes.

“She seems… sad somehow,” she said softly. “It _is_ a she, isn’t it?”

Jack nodded. “Yep. She’s also our oldest resident. When we found her, she was scratching on the soil. We thought she was trying to dig out something; turned out she was actually digging _in_ something. A baby. She was burying her baby. She’s been with us ever since – too unpredictable to let her run free.”

“Perhaps it’s just you who can’t understand her,” Jenny said.

“Perhaps,” Jack shrugged. “Owen’s working on it, but it isn’t an easy thing. She’s not exactly communicative, you know. Come with me now,” he added, again in that clipped military tone, and Jenny obeyed without hesitation.

Jack passed by two empty cells, then stopped in front of a third one. He wanted her to be in a certain distance from the Weevils, even if she _was_ an impostor. 

_Especially_ if she was an impostor.

“Here it is,” he said. “Go on in, soldier.”

Jenny marched into the cell almost on autopilot – just as Jack had expected. She only realized what was happening when the unbreakable door snapped closed behind her. She whirled around, hammering on the transparent security panel with her small fists, the hurt over Jack’s unexpected betrayal clearly written in her face.

“Jack! Why are you doing this to me?”

“I’m sorry, Jenny, I really am,” he replied tiredly. “But I have no choice. That alien signal comes from a piece of _your_ ship. You haven’t been here more than a day, and already people are getting killed and Ianto attacked. I must consider you a potential threat, until we know for sure who you are.”

“You don’t believe me?” Again, that almost child-like hurt in her eyes.

Jack sighed. “Actually, I do. I can’t explain why, but personally, I’m sure you mean no harm. But I can’t take the risk that I’m mistaken – it’s happened before, and others got to pay the price. Sorry, girl, but for now, I _have_ to keep you here. Hopefully, it won’t take long.”

He turned around and hurried back to the spiral staircase leading to the higher levels, unable to look her in the eyes.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
She found Tosh in Trevor’s lab on Sublevel Two, where she was examining a piece of charred metal – part of an atmospheric wing from Jenny’s little Raxacoricofallapatorian ship by the look of it – with a frown. A small patch on the underside of the piece of junk was blinking slowly.

“Is _that_ what’s sending the signal?” Jack asked. Tosh nodded, and Jack gave the thing a closer look – only to furrow his brow in confusion.

“But I can’t see any actual tracking device attached to that wing!” he exclaimed. “Or was it built that way to begin with?”

“I don’t think so,” Tosh turned around the piece of metal, examining it. “I think it was applied to her ship during a firefight – hence the charred patches – and fused to the metal on a molecular level, becoming undistinguishable.”

“By accident or by design?” Jack asked.

Tosh shrugged. “No idea; could be either – or both. This is completely unknown technology we’re dealing with here.”

“So, how do we switch it off?”

“We don’t; we can’t,” Tosh sighed. “This is far beyond what I’ve ever seen, at least here on Earth. I truly haven’t got a clue what to do with it.”

“But we _must_ neutralize the signal,” Jack thought about it. “Would melting the wing piece in its entirety shut it down?”

“Perhaps,” Tosh allowed cautiously. “We don’t know how much heat it can endure. But it’s worth a try.”

“Our incinerator oven was hot enough to melt a cyber-conversion unit,” Jack reminded her. “Let’s hope it will be enough.”

“And if it isn’t?” Tosh asked. “Can we send it through the Rift?”

“We can try, assuming your Rift predictor manages to provide us the exact coordinates for the next spike,” Jack said pessimistically; they both knew how slim _that_ choice was, the predictor still being in its experimental stage. “But I’m not comfortable with exposing other people to any unknown threat. “If this signal was meant to keep Jenny’s pursuers on her track, at least we have a vague idea what we might be dealing with. We’re better prepared than anyone else.”

“What if we _can’t_ deal with it, though?” Tosh seemed a lot less optimistic about that possibility than Jack was.

‘We’ll cross that bridge if and when we reach it,” Jack said. “Let’s try to melt it first; then I’ll check on the search parties. We need to find Ianto, and we need to find him quickly.”

“I think I know how we can do it,” Tosh said.

“Oh?” Jack gave her a surprised look. “Do tell me.”

“You know he was a junior Archivist at Headquarters, don’t you?” Jack nodded. “Well, Torchwood One Archivists all had a cranial implant – based on _very_ advanced alien technology – that enabled them to commit a clean and painless suicide, should they be in danger of giving away their secrets under torture. Kinda like those cyanide capsules of the CIA, just a lot more effective.”

Jack shuddered. “And people wonder why I hated One!”

“You hated One because you and Yvonne could never see eye to eye, that’s why,” Tosh replied dryly. “Anyway, Ianto does have such an implant, and I can try scanning for the signature of the alien technology in order to locate him.”

“You know the signature of his implant?” Jack didn’t know whether he should be impressed by her wide variety of knowledge or jealous because Ianto apparently hadn’t found it necessary to tell _him_ anything about this.

Tosh smiled tiredly. “Actually, Trevor does. He was part of the team that had created the implant in the first place. He gave me the info just in case we might need to find Ianto when he was unconscious and cut off of communication.”

“And since Trevor is out with the research teams…”

“… he’s got the best chance to actually find Ianto,” Tosh finished for him. “I’ll download the code into his lifesign detector – it’s too complicated to program it manually – and we’ll deal with the tracking device in the meantime.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Private Ross Jenkins was enjoying himself enormously – not that he’d show any outward sign of it, of course. He was too well trained for that – not to mention that his breeding, despite his fall-out with his rich and influential family, practically demanded a suitably blasé look from him.

A look that he had developed to perfection, much to the annoyance of his commanding officers.

But he was definitely enjoying himself. This was only the second time since they’d been exiled to Cardiff – himself, Harris and Stevie Gray, all three of them unexpected, albeit fairly damaged survivors of the Sontaran invasion – that they’d be allowed to participate in any field missions. Both times on Torchwood’s behalf, but who cared? The important thing was that they got out and could do something exciting.

More exciting than their dull desk jobs anyway.

Last time, with a Nostrovite crashing the big, fat Torchwood wedding of the decade, had been exciting and hilarious and all around great fun. A man-eating, alien laying its eggs in a human host, capable of shape shifting, so that it could take on anyone’s looks at will – what else could a UNIT soldier wish for? 

Save for beautiful women in breath-taking evening dresses in the style of the 1950s, of course, which had also been there in amazing numbers.

This new task was perhaps a little less spectacular – searching for missing persons was not that extraordinary. Only that said missing person was the young Torchwood director, and finding him was of utmost importance. 

Even if the rest of the UNIT team didn’t realize that.

Being the godson of Commodore Harry Sullivan and the progeny of high-ranking UNIT personnel, both military and civilian science staff, Private Jenkins knew more than his fellow soldiers. _Much_ more. He knew exactly who Ianto Jones was and why he’d been selected for his current position by Her Majesty, the Queen, personally.

And he also knew that no matter what Jones might have done, he must not fall into the hands of the local police. He was much too important… much too valuable for that.

Jenkins had been part of the UNIT clean-up team after the Battle of Canary Wharf. He’d seen all the blood and carnage hostile aliens could cause. Compared with that, the Sontaran invasion had been a moderate disaster – though not for him, personally. Or for Harris. Or for Stevie. But he’d been raised to always see the bigger picture, and so he’d recognized the extreme potential of Torchwood One’s legacy.

A legacy that was now only accessible through Director Jones.

Jones alone knew all the passwords and security codes to everything left by Torchwood London, keeping them in that remarkable photographic memory of his – and nowhere else. There was no way to extract those dates from his memory by force – UNIT had sought for something that _might_ work for years… and failed. Therefore, they needed Jones, and they needed him unharmed.

Should anything happen to him, and be it just a memory loss, two hundred years of research done by the Torchwood Institute would be lost, inaccessible for a very long time – unless technological development in the far, far future would make it possible for the Archives to be unlocked without the passwords.

Besides, he _liked_ Jones, despite the fact that he’d only met him once, at the Nostrovite-infested wedding. With his sharp suit, unflappable calm and quiet snark, the man was remarkably sane and laid-back for someone who’d survived Canary Wharf. 

Also, perhaps for the same reason, he was not easily intimidated by anyone. Especially not by high-ranking UNIT officers assigned to remote outposts as a punishment. Colonel Mace’s foul mood every time he’d had to deal with Torchwood clearly spoke of that, and that fact alone endeared Jenkins to the young Torchwood director.

He got along with Colonel Mace well enough, but he still missed serving with Captain Magambo. She was a no-nonsense woman with a titanium rod up her arse, but at least she never mixed her personal life and agendas with her duty. As a result, she always got the job – _any_ job assigned to her – done, and done it well.

It was too bad that Colonel Oduya didn’t like her, so she, too, had been reassigned to some insignificant outpost outside London. No doubt, she’d be running any place within weeks, but it was still a crying shame to waste her that way.

Jenkins violently, instinctively disliked Augustus Oduya, and he knew that his godfather, the commodore, shared his feelings. No one knew for certain how such a petty bureaucrat had ended up as the head of UNIT’s British division; it had happened somewhen during the reign of the ill-remembered Prime Minister Harold Saxon, and his status had not changed ever since. Jenkins often wondered why.

He must have had very good connections, in very high places when not even the Brig could have him removed from his current position.

And Oduya hated Torchwood with a passion. Everyone knew that, as he didn’t exactly make a secret of the fact. Captain Jack Harkness seemed to be the particular bane of his existence, and he never missed the chance to speak ill of him. Or to undermine whatever Torchwood Cardiff in general or Harkness in particular tried to achieve from or in cooperation with UNIT.

The reasons remained unclear; but Jenkins found that if Oduya hated them so much, especially the Cardiff branch – the only operational one at the moment – then Torchwood couldn’t be all that bad. So yeah, he was determined to find their director, hopefully unharmed.

Perhaps if he did, he could get an honourable discharge and join up with them himself. He wasn’t really sure he wanted to stay in a UNIT commanded by Augustus Oduya. Plus, by joining Torchwood’s misfits, the non-fraternization rule would no longer be a hindrance in the way of his agenda to pursue the lovely Doctor Jones.

If they ever found a way to fix him, that is. In his current shape, he’d do no good for any woman who might become interested in his pretty face.

For which, again, he had to stay in Torchwood’s good graces. He knew of the nanogenes, of course – his family might have cast him out, but his godfather still held to him, and what Commodore Sullivan didn’t know about UNIT or Torchwood wasn’t really worth knowing.

But he also knew that outsiders would never get access to such dangerous stuff. Uncle Harry _might_ talk Director Jones into making an exception; making himself useful and helping to save Jones’ arse would help considerably.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
He had been so deep in thoughts that he nearly ran over Torchwood’s Number Two geek – another survivor of Canary Wharf, if he remembered correctly – who’d stopped in the middle of the street without warning. Jenkins heard him speak briefly to somebody named Tosh, presumably the infamous Doctor Sato, through his Bluetooth device. Then he snapped a small, hand-held scanner out of his pocket and began to work on the touch screen furiously.

Private Harris, a devout worshipper each of any tech gizmo, whether they were actually useful or not, peered over the man’s shoulder. Not a big feat for him, being at least a head taller than the bald, bespectacled Torchwood scientist.

“What is that?” he asked.

“A lifesign detector,” the Torchwood techie replied absent-mindedly. “Mainframe has finally kicked in; good. Now we can latch onto Jonesy’s specifics and find him in no time… I hope.”

“You _hope_?” Harris replied, mildly shocked that the Torchwood guy would refer to his almighty director simply by _Jonesy_.

But again, they’d worked together at One, so that must have counted for something. Especially as only twenty-some of them had survived Canary Wharf, out of more than eight hundred. Jenkins made a mental note to ask his godfather how many of _those_ were actually still alive. He vaguely remembered someone mentioning that quite a few had committed suicide since.

The geek, who appeared stable enough – and he had to be, otherwise the Cardiff branch wouldn’t have hired him – shrugged.

“Well, it all depends how far he’d gotten before hospital personnel would realize he was gone.”

“In the condition he was, he couldn’t have gotten far,” Sergeant Zbrigniew commented. “I saw the reports; he was concussed, wasn’t he? And was unconscious for some time. He’d be dizzy and disoriented.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know Jonesy,” the Torchwood techie replied. “Trust me; such minor inconveniences won’t stop him after Canary Wharf. You should have seen him then. Now, _that_ was something I’d call a condition.”

“Was he injured?” Stevie Grey asked.

“We all were,” the techie answered. “Cybermen have the tendency to slam you into the next available wall, just to make a point. And that was the lucky part, cos it meant they haven’t killed you with their ray guns on the spot. Of course, it also made it easier for them to put you into one of those bloody conversion units,” he added thoughtfully. “Dazzled and concussed people put up less resistance.”

Stevie Grey shuddered. “Don’t remind me of those things, man!”

The techie looked at him in surprise. “You were there?”

“I came with one of the clean-up teams,” Stevie explained. “Had the bad luck to get assigned to the one in care of cleaning out their cyber-factory,” he shuddered again. “I still have the nightmares.”

“You’re not the only one,” the techie consulted his lifesign detector, then waved in a vague direction on his left. “Thataway.”

“Are you sure?” Harris frowned as he was still looking over the guy’s shoulder and clearly not recognizing anything in the readouts.

“Quite,” the techie replied. “Besides, this is the only clue we have, unless _you_ got a better idea,” he glared back at Harris over the rim of his glasses. “No? Thought so. Then shut up and come with me. We’ve no time to waste.”

Not waiting for an answer – not that Harris would have one anyway – he turned into a street on the left and hurried forward impatiently… only to stop in his track about two hundred metres further.

“Oh, man, Jonesy,” he muttered with a tired sigh. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

Jenkins elbowed his way past Stevie and Harris to see what had made the techie stop.- Then he, too, stopped, staring at the sight offered to him with open-mouthed shock.

Jones, wearing black denim trousers and a black leather jacket – neither of which seemed to fit him, so they were probably borrowed – over his hospital gown, was lying on his back, unconscious, his eyes wide open. Right next to him, thrown onto the ground like a broken doll, was a woman: young, pretty, blonde.

And quite dead, if the strangulation marks on her neck were any indication.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the pseudo-science is made up by me, and I’m not a technically savvy person, so please ignore any impossibilities I might have created. *g*

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 08**

Doctor Jones rushed by the UNIT soldiers and checked first the vitals of the Torchwood director, and then those of the unknown young woman.

“He’s unconscious,” she stated, moving her bioscanner, enhanced with alien technology, over Director Jones’ body. “Unusually high brain activity, though, for someone clearly passed out. Something is very fishy here. Mickey, bring around the SUV and load him in. Take him to the Hub; _St. Helen’s_ is obviously not secure enough.”

Then she kneeled down next to the other victim, opening her med-kit one-handedly.

“She’s beyond help,” she judged. “Private Jenkins, you’ve got field medic training, haven’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jenkins replied, surprised and even a little startled at the same time.

“Assist me. We need to collect samples and take photos before the police would arrive. Trevor, check her for residual Rift energy; for any possible energy signature that may appear unusual.”

“Shouldn’t we take her to the Hub, too?” the Torchwood techie, whose name was apparently Trevor, asked.

Dr. Jones shook her head. “We can’t. This is a murder case, and as such, the police have the authority to deal with it. But we’ll need every single detail if we want to prove Ianto’s innocence.”

“They’d suspect Jonesy?” the bloke named Trevor asked incredulously. He very obviously didn’t think that his boss would be capable of murdering anyone.

“Can you blame them?” Dr. Jones was collecting tissue samples from the neck of the victim, where the darkening bruises showed that she’d been, indeed, strangulated, while Jenkins took the victim’s fingerprints. “This is the second time he was found next to a murdered woman; and the same type of woman, too.”

“But _he’d_ been attacked both times, too,” the tough-looking black guy Dr. Jones called Mickey protested, having pulled up the Torchwood-mobile and unceremoniously hauled their boss onto the passenger seat.

“We don’t know _that_ ,” Dr. Jones pointed out. “We know that he was unconscious both time we found him, but that could have different reasons. In theory, he could be a psychotic serial killer who simply can’t cope with his own crimes.”

“ _Jonesy_?” Trevor shook his bald head. “No way!”

“I’m not saying he _is_ one,” Dr. Jones said. “But the police _might_ think that, and they could find a number of psychiatrists to support the idea. So, it will be the best if we took him to the Hub, where they’d have a _really_ hard time to extract him, until we can prove his innocence.”

“Couldn’t the police file an official demand for him to be put in their custody?” Sergeant Zbrigniew asked.

“Over Jack Harkness’ dead body; and we know _that_ wouldn’t last long, don’t we?” Dr. Jones replied with a cold smile. “Hurry up, Mickey, they’ll be here, soon.”

“Already on my way,” Mickey fastened the seatbelt around the unresponsive body of his boss, then jumped into the SUV and drove away with screeching tires.

Dr. Jones sighed. “That’s _one_ problem dealt with – temporarily, at least. Private Jenkins, take fibre samples from the victim’s clothing while I draw some blood. There, in that kit are some self-adhesive plastic foils, the same kind the police use. And see if you can find anything conclusive under her fingernails.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jenkins found that he enjoyed playing SOCO. Well, would have, hadn’t been the situation too bloody serious. It was like getting a guest role in CSI.

“Wouldn’t the blood be clogged already?” Zbrigniew asked.

“The body’s still warm; the _rigor mortis_ hasn’t even set on,” Dr. Jones answered, inserting the needle into the vein in the victim’s left arm. Dark blood began to quill sluggishly into the small plastic syringe. “She couldn’t have been dead for longer than an hour.”

“Ma’am,” Jenkins looked up to her in surprise,” there’s something under her fingernails.”

“Tissue samples?” Dr. Jones asked sharply. “Has she scratched somebody?”

Jenkins shook his head. “Well, she obviously _did_ scratch somebody – or _something_ – but this doesn’t look like human tissue. Some kind of greyish white substance; fairly hard, too. I’ve no idea what it is.”

“Take a sample but leave something for the police, too,” Dr. Jones ordered, storing her own blood and tissue samples in the respective containers of the medkit. She even pulled a few hairs from the victim’s head.

“What is that for?” Zbrigniew frowned.

“Examining the hair will tell us if she was on drugs, and if yes, when and for how long,” she explained. “Is there a handbag or a purse on her to tell us who she was?”

Harris went to look around but came back empty-handed.

“I didn’t find anything, ma’am,” he said. “But I don’t think she was a hooker. She seems so… ordinary, like the girl next door. Perhaps it was just bad luck. Perhaps she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Dr. Jones nodded thoughtfully. “You may be right, Private… Harris, isn’t it? Her clothes are fairly inconclusive: jeans, a tank top, a jacket hundreds of other girls wear, sneakers… Barely any make-up, hair in a simple ponytail… a student perhaps, or somebody working in a pizza shop or in a supermarket that’s open during the night. The poor thing.”

“A bloody shame it is,” Harris agreed. “Any theory _why_ she might have been chosen, ma’am?”

“Perhaps,” Dr. Jones replied evasively. “It could have been a case of mistaken identity; but we can be entirely wrong,” she turned to Zbrigniew. “Sergeant, give Colonel Mace my regards and express my thanks on behalf of Torchwood for his willingness to let you help us. I’ll give him a fully detailed report at the first possible time. As soon as I can be sure what’s going on.”

“Are we done here, then?” Zbrigniew asked.

Dr. Jones nodded. “Yes. We’ve done what we could. The rest is a job for the police.”

“We’d better retreat then,” the sergeant decided. “They don’t need to know we were involved. They’ll be pissed off by the presence of Torchwood enough.”

“Very true,” confessed Dr. Jones. “Thank you for your help, Sergeant.”

Zbrigniew didn’t waste any time with platitudes, just nodded once, briefly, and ordered his men to return to the base. The UNIT team marched away at once.

When, only moments later, the paramedics and the police finally arrived, they only found Trevor Howard and Martha Jones on the crime scene.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Going down to the incinerator was never easy for Jack. All too vivid were his memories of the people – usually aliens, but inevitably also the odd human – who had vanished in there, because they’d been declared a threat for the Empire, during his hundred-and-some years associated with Torchwood Cardiff.

In recent years, a more personal memory had been added to those old ones; a different one, yet one no less unpleasant. He stole a quick glance at Tosh and could see that she, too, was reminded the last time the incinerator had been used.

The Cyberwoman incident had nearly torn the team apart, but it had also opened their eyes to who – or _what_ – Ianto really was. It had given them a glimpse of the young man’s full potential, although Jack was sure there were still layers upon layers hidden from their eyes.

Well, from _his_ eyes anyway. In the meantime he’d come to the realization that Tosh might have known all along what Ianto had done while working for Headquarters. And Gwen and Owen couldn’t be arsed to care. For them, Ianto had been just the teaboy, whose job was to make their lives comfortable – and then the Traitor, with a capital ‘T’.

Somehow it was ironic that Owen, who’d been foaming off the mouth about Ianto’s treachery for quite some time, had come to shooting Jack in the head, driven by the mad desire to open the Rift and got his Diane back. A woman for whom he’d only ever come second, after her first, true love: flying. 

No wonder the man had knacked after Jack’s departure. Unlike Gwen, at least Owen had a conscience.

Jack still didn’t know for sure what _Gwen_ had done that would make Ianto decide to Retcon her back to where she’d stood before joining Torchwood. He’d been given the basic facts, of course, and what little he’d witnessed of her actions since his return persuaded him that it _had_ been necessary – she was clearly obsessed and a danger for them all – but not the details, and everyone knew that the devil was always in the details.

He decided that enough was enough. Once the current crisis was over, he’d sit down with Tosh – who was more likely to tell him things, due to their long friendship – and get to the bottom of this. No pun intended.

They fired up the incinerator and watched in relief as the metallic alloy of Raxacoricofallapatorian origins gave in to the fire. When the pre-programmed cycle ended, there was nothing but a lump of slag left in the oven.

“The signal has stopped,” Tosh said, consulting her hand-held scanner. “That’s one problem solved. What about Ianto, though?”

Jack checked his watch. “He’s on his way to the Hub and will be here in, oh, twenty minutes or so. Martha says he’s unconscious again… very much like he was earlier.”

“Do you think we can get him here before the police would catch up with him?” Tosh asked in concern. 

Jack shrugged. “With Mickey driving? They won’t stand a chance.”

“And what when we’ve got him here safely?” Tosh insisted. “What then? He’s a murder suspect, Jack! If we can’t clear him beyond doubt, we can kiss co-operation with the local police good-bye… for a very long time.”

“We _will_ clear him,” Jack replied with easy confidence. “I know he’s not a murderer; and we have the means to prove it.”

“You mean that alien lie detector?” Tosh raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I doubt the police would accept _that_ as a proof.”

“Perhaps they won’t, but UNIT will, and that’s what counts,” Jack said. “They know how it works; and they know it never fails. They’ll back us against the police if necessary.”

“Let’s hope so,” Tosh said slowly. “But… Jack, I know you’re not willing to consider the possibility, but what if Ianto’s truly murdered those girls? Not because he wanted to but because he was forced?”

“Are you speaking of alien mind control?” Jack shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. You know how much I despised One, but they trained their people well. Including psychic training. You told me yourself that Rajesh Singh couldn’t be fooled by the psychic paper, and I assume Archivists had higher level training than his.”

“To counteract such a simple trick is one thing; to resist a powerful alien telepath is another one,” Tosh reminded him. “No matter how strong one’s defences are, there always can come somebody who’s stronger.”

“We’ll know, sooner or later,” Jack listened to his earpiece for a moment. “Tom’s just got back from _St. Helen’s_. Let’s hear what he’s got to tell us about Ianto’s escape.”

“You go,” Tosh said. “I’ll check on Jenny first; then I’ll come, too.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think she’s got anything to do with this?”

“She most certainly has _something_ to do with it, but I doubt that she’d intend to harm us,” Tosh corrected. “I do think, however, that the murderer has followed her – or rather the signal of that tracking device – through the Rift.”

“Do you believe that she really is the Doctor’s daughter?” Jack asked hesitantly.

Tosh shrugged. “There’s a strong possibility, yes. She’s Gallifreyan, there’s no doubt about that, and she recognized him – the current him – on the archive photos. That still isn’t hard proof, though – she still can be an impostor; a well-informed one. We’ll only know for sure when the DNA-analysis has run its cycle.”

“But you’ll check on her nonetheless,” Jack said.

“Well, _somebody_ has to, and I doubt that she’d want to see _you_ right now,” Tosh sighed. “Besides, I owe it to her father – to his former self, that is – in case she _is_ the genuine item.”

Jack smiled and kissed the top of her head. “You’re a good girl, Toshiko Sato.”

“And _you’re_ running late,” Tosh stood on tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek. “Go. I’ll be with you, soon.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jenny had been sitting in her bare little cell for hours. She couldn’t tell for how many of them as her inner sense of time hadn’t adapted yet to the planet’s cycles completely. But it had been long enough for her to get bored. Not to mention hungry and thirsty. Whatever was going on above her head, it was apparently bad enough for the Torchwood people to forget about her.

Or about the other residents in the cells.

She didn’t blame them for locking her up, not really. They didn’t know her; they had no proof that she truly was who she stated to be. Besides, it was her impression that – save for Jack and Toshiko – nobody at Torchwood really _liked_ her Dad. And even Jack’s feelings towards him were mixed at best. While the captain clearly loved her Dad, there was also a great deal of bitterness in him.

Her Dad must have hurt him badly.

Perhaps she could ask the pretty lady doctor about it. Martha had obviously been a companion; she and Jack had even travelled with her Dad together for a short while, it seemed. And yet both of them had chosen to leave her Dad and remain on this insignificant little planet, barely out of its primordial stage.

Why would they do that? For her part, Jenny would have given _anything_ to travel with her Dad in his amazing timeship. Why would anyone give up that chance willingly?

She decided to find out the reasons… eventually. It was something related to her Dad, and therefore it was her business, too. But first she needed to orchestrate a little jailbreak. She wouldn’t stay in his stupid cell, bored out of her head, while there was a murderer running free. A murderer that had probably followed _her_ to this planet.

If they didn’t want her help, fine. She could do things on her own; had done for years.

She loosened the laces of her ankle boots and pulled out the two components hidden there. She touched the rough ends together, and the intelligent metal became fluid for a moment at the contact point, fusing the components into one piece.

What she was holding in her hand now was a silvery metallic stift, about a handspan’s long and barely thicker than her forefinger… and it warmed slightly, recognizing her DNA. It wouldn’t work for anyone else.

Her universal key. A clever little sonic device, built with the help of memories, the Time Lord knowledge encoded in her genes, thank the Progenation Machine. Her Dad had something similar, she knew it; he’d called it a sonic screwdriver. She preferred her own name for the thing; it sounded considerably more elegant, better fitting for a girl. Besides, it was more elegant. It looked a little like a futuristic ball-point pen, but it had all functions her Dad’s device could display.

Opening any doors, for example.

She aimed the key at the slide door and activated the scanner modus. To open a lock, she needed to _find_ it first; but it took the clever little tool mere moments. The door slid aside without resistance, and Jenny stepped out into the corridor. She’d memorized the way down here easily. Tracking it back would be no problem at all.

As she passed the cell of the creature Jack had called a Weevil, though, the wave of sadness and longing stopped her in her track. The creature was obviously suffering from loneliness and loss – and those were things she could understand all too well.

She stepped closer to the transparent door and reached out to the female Weevil telepathically. She wasn’t very good at it, and she lacked any training in the area – another thing she needed to catch up with eventually – but she _could_ establish a mental link with another telepathic being if she tried hard enough… _and_ if the other one was willing to share.

“C’mon,” she murmured. “Show me what’s bothering you.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack found Tom Milligan in the main Hub area. The doctor had already put on the set of clothes he kept in the Hub for emergencies (like everyone else) and endured patiently Lloyd’s fussing. She was preparing a cup of tea for him, with lots of sugar, forcing him to eat some chocolate chip muffins with it.

“You need to boost your blood sugar level, or you’ll just keel over,” she declared.

Tom smiled tolerantly into his teacup. The fuss was really unnecessary, but if it made her feel better, he could live with it… besides, it was nice to be pampered from time to time.

“How bad is it?” Jack asked, eyeing the small wound on Tom’s head warily. It had been professionally cleaned and dressed at _St. Helen’s_ , but still…

Nonetheless, Tom seemed fine enough for a guy who’d recently been knocked out by his own patient. A patient that had supposedly been out like a light.

“Headache… probably a mild concussion,” Tom replied with a careful shrug; his head didn’t like any abrupt movements right now. “Nothing serious. I’ll be right as rain in a couple of days.”

“That’s good to know,” Jack dropped onto a chair. “So, can you tell me what the hell happened?”

“That’s a good question,” Tom said. “I was sitting peacefully in Ianto’s sick room, checking the monitors from time to time… until he suddenly woke up. Well, not exactly,” he corrected himself. “He didn’t really _wake up_. He bolted upright in his bed, stared at me with those spooky, vacant eyes; and then he ripped the needles from his arm, tore away the sensor pads of the heart monitor and the other stuff and jumped out of the bed like… like an oversized cat, actually. When I tried to stop him, he threw me at the wall, where I hit my head and lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in my underwear, had a raging headache, and Ianto was gone.”

“And you say he wasn’t really awake?” Jack frowned. “Could he have been sleepwalking? I know he used to do that a lot when he was a child.”

“Perhaps,” Tom allowed. “But I never heard before that a sleepwalker would develop preternatural strength while on a walking trip. They usually just do what they do when awake.”

Jack’s frown deepened. “What do you mean with _preternatural strength_? Ianto isn’t a weakling.”

“No, he isn’t but he shouldn’t be able to throw me against a wall like a rag doll,” Tom replied. “Jack, I’m as tall as he is, I weigh another half as much, and I’m a lot stronger. I used to be an athlete when I was in his age and built up quite the muscle mass; under normal circumstances I’d be able to beat him up and tie him in a knot. But today – I didn’t have a chance against him. It was like being hit by a steamroller.”

“How do you explain it?” Jack asked. “Alien influence?”

“I haven’t got a clue,” Tom confessed. “The human body can call up amazing strength in an emergency situation, even without any aliens involved. Old men are known to have jumped over six-foot-high fences to escape attacking bulls – something they’d never have managed otherwise. But _something_ must trigger such reactions; you can’t just switch them on at will.”

“By which we’d be back to alien mind control,” Lloyd said. “It would explain the long stretch of unconscious state afterward. The body would need to recharge after such extortions.”

“It _is_ a possibility,” Tom allowed. “We’ll know more when I can examine him. But I’ll need Owen’s help. I’m way too new to this alien shit, be it creatures or technology.”

“Has he come back with you?” Jack asked.

Tom nodded. “He’s preparing the sick room for Ianto.”

Jack’s eyebrows climbed to the roots of his hair. “We’ve got a sick room in the Hub?”

Lloyd rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, c’me on, Captain, you’ve been back for _months_. Are you telling me that you haven’t spotted our sick room yet? It’s not like it would be somewhere on Sublevel 20 or so; it’s right below the med bay.”

“Well, I don’t _need_ it, do I?” replied Jack with a shrug.

“True,” Lloyd said. “But if you’re always so blind for what’s going on in your own base, it’s no wonder your old team could do whatever they wanted behind your back.”

The casual comment hurt, but Jack had to admit that she was right. Besides, he couldn’t wallow in regret about past mistakes right now. He had to find a way to protect Ianto, by all means necessary.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
She was standing upon a low hill on a large, twilit planet that was orbiting a dying sun. The ruddy light could barely penetrate the thick layer of fog, created by the grey dampness that kept emerging from the swamps that covered the planet surface as far as she could see. She could feel the slight pull of a gravity greater than that on Earth, albeit not by much – she calculated it to be about one hundred and four per cent of the Earth norm.

Breathing was hard in the thick, foggy atmosphere high on carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapours, rising from the muddy waters and from the far-away volcanoes smoking at the edge of her vision. A vision that was blurred due to the omnipresent fog barely stirred by the slightest breeze. It was like seeing things through thick, cloudy glass.

She couldn’t see any trees or other higher advanced plants anywhere. The flora consisted of various kinds of ferns; some of them towering as high as ten feet, but still ferns, with semi-elastic stems thicker than a man’s girth, swaying gently in the slight breeze. Small reptiles were scurrying in the undergrowth, their muted greens and yellows and greys made them blend with their surroundings completely.

Everything seemed to be covered with a layer of grey; the towering _Lepidodendrons_ and _Sigillaria_ had no blossoms and only long, thin leaves like the head of a lance. And yet in places where they grew densely it was dark between their thick stems. A darkness that the planet’s pitiful attempt of daylight could never penetrate.

But there was life in that darkness nonetheless. Tall, bulky bipedal creatures moved on the outskirts of the fern forest: creatures with wrinkled, leathery grey skin thick enough to withstand the general dampness of this world; with deep-set eyes protected by a protruding brows and with sharp talons and fangs to catch the small lizards and eat them raw.

 _Weevils_ , she decided, _in their natural environment_.

Here, on their planet of origins, they wore no clothing, and yet there was no sure sign to tell the males from the females, although she knew that the ones with the more defined spine column were supposed to be male. They looked very much alike, all of them.

She watched with interest as a small group of them left the safety of the dark forest to go down to the swamp shining dully through a less densely grown group of _Sigillaria_ and wondered whether they had natural enemies here. They seemed careful and suspicious. While some of them lay down on their bellies, reaching with their long arms into the muddy water and coming up with creatures that looked vaguely like fish and crabs, others were standing guard.

She realized that they were gathering food; and they didn’t gobble it up right away. One of them had brought some sort of net, knotted from natural fibres, and was now collecting what the others had got from the swamp. That spoke of some rudimentary intelligence; even of the beginnings of social order.

Suddenly, their food-gathering activity was interrupted by a blinding, oscillating disc of light that appeared close to the swamp’s edge – like a mythical gate into another dimension. Most of the Weevils covered their eyes and ran blindly away, back to the dark safety of the fern forest. Others curled up on the damp floor, hiding their faces and howling in terror. She realized that this was the first sound they’d made.

Others, among them the one gathering the fish, approached the light carefully, ready to bolt any moment. They seemed to be drawn to it, like moths to the flame – most likely with the same disastrous results. One of them boldly poked the… the _thing_ with a clawed finger, and when nothing happened, it went even closer, until the anomaly swallowed it completely.

The others howled in distress, but a few of them followed suit, until only a gatherer – presumably a female – was left. She hesitated; then she threw away her half-filled net and jumped into the light.

A moment later the anomaly collapsed as if it had never been there.

At the same moment the connection broke and Jenny found herself back in the corridor of Torchwood’s underground base, staring into the yellow eyes of Janet the Weevil.

“So, there’s where you’ve come from?” she murmured. “And you’re homesick, aren’t you? Well, I can certainly understand _that_.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The alien lie detector is the one from the episode “Adam”, of course. Although I’m omitting those events from this alternate season, I don’t see why I couldn’t use the cool tech. ;)
> 
>  **Warning:** disturbing images in this chapter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 09**

Tosh was understandably shocked to find Jenny out of her cell, although if she was honest to herself she shouldn’t have been. Not really. After all, the Doctor was a master at breaking out of any prison or trap imaginable – so why should be another Gallifreyan, whether his daughter or not, be any different?

What shocked her even more was the fact that Jenny had _not_ fled the Hub. Instead she was kneeling in front of Janet’s cell, reaching through one of the round air holes in the transparent door and petting Janet’s monstrous head affectionatedly. Although perhaps that shouldn’t have surprised her, either. The Doctor was always gentle with bizarre aliens, too. He’d even tried to save that poor, fake space pig over the corpse of which Tosh had first met him.

The only creature he’d ever been cruel was Jack. Shockingly enough, as Jack had always been willing to leave everything – and everyone – behind for him. Well, hopefully not any longer, but the respect was decidedly one-sided.

She pushed away the thought. She had more urgent problems right now and no idea how to solve them. She realized that it was no use to try getting Jenny back to her cell; not when she could – and apparently _did_ – leave at will. It would be better to take her back up to the main Hub area, where she might even offer some insight – but how could _that_ be done safely?

Tosh barely dared to breathe, lest she startled Janet who then could bite off the girl’s hand, out of sheer fright. There was no proof that Jenny could grow a new hand as the Doctor had done, even if she was his daughter. That might be a common Gallifreyan ability – or one of the Doctor’s personal tricks. Better not put it on the probe.

Jenny must have felt her presence, because she withdrew her hand after a last pat on Janet’s head and turned to her, grinning.

“Have your instruments told you that I’ve bolted?”

Tosh shook her head. “No, I actually came to check on you; to see if you needed anything… What were you doing here with Janet?” she blurted out. “She could have maimed you beyond help!”

Jenny’s grin turned into a genuine, fond smile. “Oh, no, she’d never do that, not to me!”

“And you can be sure about that because…” Tosh trailed off doubtfully.

“We… communicated,” Jenny explained. “You see, your Doctor Harper was right; they are mildly telepathic. And so are Gallifreyans, to a certain extent, or else we couldn’t communicate with the TARDISes.”

“I know,” Tosh said. “I used to be a companion, remember? So, what were the two of you talking about?”

“We weren’t,” Jenny said. “Their minds are not so organized. All they can transmit are images and emotions. She was showing me her home planet.”

“Really?” Tosh could barely control her excitement. “What was it like?”

“Rather unremarkable,” Jenny admitted. “A large planet orbiting a red dwarf, covered with swamps and ferns. Four per cent higher gravity than here, thick fog everywhere. The flora seems to match that of Earth’s carbon period, and apparently the Weevils are the highest form of life over there.”

“I always thought red dwarves couldn’t sustain life,” commented Tosh thoughtfully.

Jenny shrugged. “In theory, they shouldn’t. But the universe is full of surprises.”

Tosh laughed at that. “That sounded like something your Dad would say.”

“Like father like daughter, eh?” Jenny grinned.

“Seems so, yeah,” Tosh agreed. “Did you also see how they got to Earth?” she then asked, returning to the topic of Weevils. Jenny nodded.

“Through some sort of spatio-temporal anomaly, I think. It opened out of nowhere and hung in the air like… like a shattered mirror. A few of the Weevils – the ones that hadn’t fled in terror – came through it. Then it simply closed and was gone, just like that.”

“Just like a Rift spike,” Tosh added thoughtfully. “It must have been one. We have no idea to which times or places the Rift connects us when it spikes; see how far in space and time it has brought _you_.”

Jenny nodded. “True. It must open on the Weevil homeworld semi-regularly, though. I only saw a few of them cross the anomaly, but Janet seems to have knowledge of what it looks like when it closes. Her people are clearly familiar with the phenomenon.”

“Besides, no matter how long they live, the few you’ve seen couldn’t have populated the sewers of Cardiff in the hundred-and-some years since the first opening of the Rift,” Tosh pointed out. “Whoa! You’ve learned more about them than we had in more than a century! Owen’s gonna be so jealous. He’s worked with them for years and found out nothing beyond physical characteristics.”

“They don’t like Owen,” Jenny told her. “They’re afraid of him, although I don’t know why. They prefer Ianto; and they’ve accepted Mickey by now.”

“Well, he likes them, too; and he’s the one who feeds them now, that has to count,” Tosh said logically. “Tell me, though: where were you heading when you stopped for a little chat with Janet?”

“I don’t know,” Jenny admitted with disarming honesty. “Just out. I was bored to death, and I want to help. If this murderer is someone he _Xithian Alliance_ sent after me, you will need my help. I’m the only one who’s familiar with them… well, sort of.”

“Perhaps,” Tosh allowed reluctantly. “Well, since you’ve broken out already, you can come with me just as well.”

Jenny beamed at her. “I thought you’d never ask!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the meantime Mickey had arrived with a still unconscious Ianto. The rest of he Torchwood team had come back, too, and Martha and Owen were hooking Ianto up on various medical equipment, very little of which originated from twenty-first century Earth.

“How is he doing?” Jack asked anxiously.

Owen checked the monitors at the head of Ianto’s bed and sucked in his lower lip.

“Aside from the unusual brain activity, all his readings show up normal,” he said. “Or what counts as normal for a sleep-deprived, anal-retentive Welshman. Whatever. Physically he’s okay, just exhausted. His brain… that’s a different matter.”

“What’s wrong with his brain?” Jack blanched.

Martha glared at Owen in a manner that promised retaliation.

“Nothing is wrong with his brain,” she said soothingly. “It’s just so…”

“…that the human brain ain’t supposed to work with such intensity,” Owen interrupted. Not even Teaboy’s organic computer should do that. So, if we can’t make him slow down a bit, his brain will either cook in his skull, or all that activity will trigger that nice little implant of his, making it think that someone’s trying to extract info from him – and then he’ll be deader than dead in a millisecond.”

“Not funny, Owen!” Jack growled, but the haunted eyes of their chief medical officer were deadly serious.

“I ain’t joking, Harkness! It was bad enough after the first… episode; now it’s a hundred per cent worse. Either we find a way to stop his brain from overworking, or Teaboy will be dead within the next forty-eight hours.”

“Well, _do_ something then!” Jack demanded. Owen rolled his eyes.

“Do _what_? Jack, if anything, this is a telepathic attack. How am I supposed to stop _that_?”

“What about the vaults?” Martha suggested. “Their shielding…”

“… is against temporal shifts,” Jack interrupted. They won’t help. Not with this. I wonder why this alien would pick Ianto, of all people. Why not someone with a more agreeable mind?”

“Probably because he was in the wrong place when the first murder happened,” Jenny said, entering the sick room with Tosh. “ _Hithon_ erasers like a challenge.”

“What’s an _eraser_?” Jack asked. “And, by the way, what the hell is she doing here?” 

He shot Tosh an unfriendly look, but the times when he could intimidate her were long over.

“She’d already opened the cell door when I got down,” Tosh explained matter-of-factly. “I found her playing with Janet.”

“You found her doing _what_?”

“Later, Jack. Let’s focus on Ianto now. Jenny, how can we stop the telepathic attack?”

“By killing the _eraser_ ,” Jenny replied promptly. “Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. _Erasers_ are tough bastards.”

“For the second time: what _is_ an eraser?” Jack asked, his patience failing rapidly.

“Highly trained _Hithon_ assassins,” Jenny explained. “Specially trained to operate outside the Hive – something the average _Hithon_ couldn’t do. They are skilled, merciless – and expendable, often assigned to missions with no return. They operate under cover and if caught, they blow themselves up, so that they can’t be traced back to the Hive. The bomb they use has a five hundred meter radius, so better corner it somewhere outside the well-populated areas.”

Mickey looked at Jack. “Have you stopped the signal?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t easy. We had to melt it down, together with the wing it was attached to.”

“Then the crash site would be where the assassin starts to search for Jenny,” Mickey said. “Unless the signal had gotten through the Hub’s defences, in which case we’re all dead.”

“Let’s hope it hadn’t,” Jack said. “Do you have an idea how to trap the assassin?”

Mickey nodded. As a former freedom fighter, he was good at guerrilla warfare. “Yeah. We’ll need a bait, though.”

Nobody looked at Jenny, but she knew what they were expecting from her.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “It’s _me_ it wants anyway.”

“You mean you’re the one it wants to _kill_ ,” Tosh corrected.

“One way or another, I won’t be safe as long as it’s alive,” Jenny said soberly. “The sooner we take it out, the better for us all.”

“There’s that,” Jack admitted. “We can give it a try if you’re sure you want to do it. But what are we gonna do with Ianto in the meantime? We _must_ find out the truth. Owen would it be safe to wake him up?”

“I can do it, but I won’t suggest it. The pressure could cause him snap.”

“I know, I know;” Jack grabbed handfuls of his own hair as if he were about to tear it out in sheer frustration. “But if his brain is about to explode anyway, we don’t have a chance. Mickey, go down to the Archives and bring me up _this_ item,” he handed their resident smartass a slip of paper with a long code number.

“You really want to give that alien lie detector a try?” Tosh asked, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. Jack shrugged.

“Want to? No, I sure as hell don’t _want_ to. But that’s the only way to prove Ianto’s innocence; besides, the tech is completely safe.”

“Completely safe for someone in good health,” Owen scowled. “Fuck only knows what it’s gonna do to Teaboy’s brain, addled by this telepathic mojo as it already is.”

Jack was about to say something _really_ unfriendly when his phone rang. He looked at the display: it was Swanson. He sighed and answered the call; he listened, gave a few monosyllabic answers, and then disconnected.

“Well, people,” he looked at the others,” we’re out of options. Kathy’s coming over, and she wants to interrogate Ianto.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
To say that Detective Swanson was angry would have been an understatement; she was furious. She was positively fuming as she descended into the Hub via invisible lift. She’d been very cooperative. She’d covered their arses as far as she could afford – and then some. She’d taken great personal risks to protect them – and _this_ was how they repaid her? By going behind her back and playing her for a fool?

They thought they could get away with everything, just because they were Torchwood, eh? Well, they were wrong. _Nobody_ played Katherine Swanson for a fool and got away with it to tell the tale. They were going to learn _that_ the hard way today.

It wasn’t so that she wouldn’t _like_ Jones – she did. But if he was the one who’d murdered those poor girls whose only fault had been to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, not even the personal intervention of Her Majesty the Queen could save him, Torchwood or no Torchwood. _Nobody_ stood above the law, no matter what Jack Harkness seemed to believe.

She stepped down from the lift platform, forcing the dizziness to go away – she _hated_ the stupid lift, but it was the fastest and easiest way to get in – and glared at the blonde Rift technician on duty.

“Where’s Jones?” she demanded without preamble.

Sally Jacobs didn’t seem the least intimidated; but again, she rarely did.

“Why, in the interrogation room, of course,” she replied calmly. “Go right through, Detective; you know the way. Captain Harkness is waiting for you.”

“Has he bugged my car or what?” Swanson frowned.

“Of course not,” Jacobs said. “But we constantly watch the Plass through CCTV, just in case,” and she turned one of the security monitors, so that Swanson could see Roald Dahl Plass from different angles on the split screen.

Right. She should have remembered that. Big Brother was nothing compared with Torchwood – especially since Jones had taken over. Jones, who might be a serial killer. Swanson briefly wondered whether the young Torchwood director’s obsessive hang to detail was somehow related to other, more dangerous obsessions. 

Like murdering harmless blonde girls for no apparent reason.

She stomped down on that thought immediately. Speculations led nowhere. She owed Jones the benefit of the doubt – until she found hard proof for his guilt.

She hurried over to the interrogation room – a small and rather Spartan concrete chamber accessed from stairs at the end of Harkness’ former office space (now used by Jones mostly). It had two windows, a large wall grating, a table and two chairs, as well as a small balcony above that allowed people to watch the interrogations. A single, old-fashioned lamp hung from the centre of the ceiling, casting a yellow disc of light at the middle of the table.

When Swanson reached the observation balcony, Jones – paler than usual and looking rather out of it – was already sitting on one side of the table… in a wheelchair, mind you so his condition had to be fairly serious. He was wearing a hospital scrub again, under a terrycloth robe, and Dr. Harper was fussing around him, checking his blood pressure and controlling his pupils with a penlight. 

Harkness was sitting on the opposite side of the table, tinkering with some sort of alien gizmo that looked like a shoe box. Like a black, plastic shoe box with green lights on that beeped from time to time.

From her vantage point, Swanson could see and hear everything without being seen. She didn’t doubt that the Rift technician had already warned Harkness about her arrival; his occasional upward glances revealed that much. He gave no sign of it, though, just kept tinkering.

“All set,” he finally said. “Now, get out. This is better done between just Ianto and me.”

“As if they wouldn’t watch us from the balcony anyway,” Jones muttered. “This is like a bloody reality show. Always hated those.”

“It doesn’t matter, Ianto,” Harkness said gently while Toshiko and her right hand, that Howard character, joined Swanson on the observation balcony. Dr. Harper stayed outside the door, just in case. “Forget about them. Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

Jones eyed the shoebox doubtfully. “And _this_ is supposed to tell whether I’m saying the truth or not?”

Harkness nodded. “Best lie detector on the planet – or outside it, as a matter of fact. If something’s untrue, the light turns red. Go on. Tell me what you’ve done.”

“I killed three girls, that’s what I’ve done,” Jones replied flatly.

“Stop kidding around!” Harkness snorted, clearly not believing him.

“I’m serious,” Jones said, still in that flat voice. “Look at your wonder box: the light’s green, so I’m telling the truth, right? I murdered them in cold blood. Strangled them and left their bodies on the street.”

“I thought it was Jenny you killed,” Harkness said, seemingly unfazed, while Swanson’s head was spinning from the speed with her mind worked. There was a _third_ victim somewhere? Why wasn’t if found yet? She’d have to order search parties…

“It was Jenny whom I _wanted_ to kill,” Jones’ voice was barely a whisper. “The others; that was a terrible mistake. Blonde girls look all alike. Like puppets in a shop window, waiting to be broken. You have to lock me up in the vaults, Jack… or execute me before I turn on Sally… or Emma… or Lloyd… They’re all blonde; they’re not safe around me!”

Harkness stood, walked around the table and hugged the dejected young man tightly. “Hey, hey, c’me here, c’me here. What happened to you?”

By then, Jones was crying silently into his shoulder. “I’m a monster, Jack. Something in me craves flesh… wants to kill.”

Swanson felt a cold shiver run down her spine. Could it be true? They said it was always the quiet ones you had to be careful around, but _Jones_? He seemed so harmless, so collected, so _sane_. Could he have a hidden side that was a monster indeed?

“I don’t believe _that_ for a moment,” Harkness declared, as if answering to her thoughts. “But I think you should get it off your chest. So tell me about the first victim. How did you find her?”

“I don’t know,” Jones whispered. “I was going home… the street was so dark, and it was raining… I saw that blonde hair of hers glittering in the rain… then my hands were on her throat, squeezing the life out of her – and it felt good, so good! I thought it was Jenny, but it wasn’t, so I had to keep looking for her… to kill her.”

Harkness shook his head while Swanson was fighting her nausea.

“Nonsense. Tell me about the other girl.

“She tried to get away,” Jones whispered. “But I was faster. She screamed and screamed… I wanted her to stop making so much noise, it made my head hurt… so I choked her until she was finally silent. Look at your box: it reads as truth.”

“No,” Harkness said grimly. “It reads as truth because you _believe_ it to be true; that doesn’t mean it _is_ true. You’re _not_ a murderer.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” Jones murmured. “After Lisa, I _would_ have killed you in delight.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Only because I knew it wouldn’t last. Could you stay dead, you _would_ be dead by now… by my hand.”

“Perhaps,” Harkness said with eerie calmness. “But you have no reason to kill Jenny. Why would you do that?”

“She’s dangerous,” Jones murmured. “A risk. We can’t ignore a risk like her.”

“ _We_?” Harkness repeated, realizing – just like Swanson – that they were finally getting closer to the truth. “Who are _we_?”

But Jones no longer heard him. He tensed in the wheelchair, arched his back and started spasming uncontrollably, with such a force that he nearly tipped the chair over. His hands balled to fists, the ligaments standing out white, his eyes rolled upwards until only the white of them could be seen, and Swanson could hear the gnashing of his teeth up to the balcony.

“Owen!” Harkness shouted, panic evident in his voice. “ _Do_ something!”

Dr. Harper was already running in, with Dr. Milligan in tow, opening his med-kit single-handedly. 

“Hold him down before he breaks any bones!” he snapped. “He’s having a brain seizure; Milligan, you’ll have to give him the shot, my hand isn’t steady enough!”

He and Harkness practically threw themselves on Jones, needing all their strength to keep him immobilized, while Dr. Milligan injected something right into the big vein in his neck. Swanson winced in sympathy; that must have hurt like a bitch. She counted the seconds. By twenty-six, the seizure stopped and Jones went limp, his eyes wide open and unresponsive.

Damn, but that had been one scary scene!

Dr. Harper fished something small, round and metallic out of his medkit and pressed it onto Jones’ forehead. Surprisingly enough, it stayed in place.

“Molecular adhesion,” he explained curtly, and Harkness nodded in understanding.

“Cortical monitor?” he then asked. It sounded ridiculously like a quote from Star Trek, but Harper just nodded, pulled out a hand-held scanner – and swore.

“Brain activity is off the scale,” he showed the readout to Dr. Milligan. “And I have no idea how to stop it. He won’t survive another seizure. The neural pathways have already begun to break down.”

“Meaning what?” Harkness asked impatiently.

“Meaning that even if he does wake up, he’ll be paralysed on the left side,” Dr. Harper told him bluntly. “And if we don’t take out that fucking alien before the next seizure, we won’t have to worry about his reconvalescence at all.”

For a moment it seemed as if Harkness would faint. But he pulled himself together almost immediately.

“All right,” he said. “Talk to me, Owen. What _can_ we do?”

“ _We_ can’t do anything,” Dr. Harper replied sourly. “Not a flying fuck; and neither can all the sodding tech piled up in the Archives. I wish we’d run into some nice aliens once in a while. You know, friendly ones who’d be, well, _helpful_.”

“Hey!” the blonde girl with Toshiko protested. “What about me?”

Swanson knew she was staring but she couldn’t help. The girl was an _alien_? She didn’t look like one.

“Are you a neurosurgeon now?” Dr. Harper asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Can you heal brain damage caused by a telepathic attack? Or rather a whole fucking _string_ of telepathic attacks?”

“Language, Owen,” Toshiko warned him, while the girl shook her head dejectedly.

The doctor shrugged. “Just stating the obvious.”

“Yeah, ‘cos we’ve got so much time to waste,” Harkness growled; then he snipped with his fingers. “Of course! The Butterfly People!”

Identical blank looks answered him from all present.

“Mary’s people,” he explained, which still didn’t say Swanson anything, but the others seemed to know what he was talking about. “That’s what they’re usually called, cos they’re so fragile and beautiful.”

“Until they start ripping out your heart for breakfast,” Dr. Harper muttered darkly. Harkness shook his head.

“Nah, that one was a criminal and likely crazed, too. The rest of their people are very gentle and spiritual. They’re great poets, artists… and healers.”

“Yeah, but how can we get one of them here?” Dr. Milligan asked.

“I know of one who visits an old friend of mine from time to time,” Harkness said. “She even has the means to call it. I’ll ask her to help,” he whipped out his cell phone and hit the speed dial. “Sarah Jane? Yeah, it’s me. Sorry for calling you so late, but…Listen, I need your help in a delicate and _very_ urgent matter. Or rather the help of your poet friend; you can contact her in case of an emergency, right? No, not that sort of emergency… Ask Mr. Smith to scramble this call, and I’ll tell you…”

He walked over to his – Ianto’s – office to talk with his friend in private. Less than a moment later he came back, looking carefully optimistic.

“Well, let’s hope that this works out,” he said.

“And what are we gonna do with Teaboy in the meantime?” Dr. Harper asked. “Or if it isn’t gonna work?”

Harkness sighed. “I hate to suggest it, but in his current condition there’s only one place where he can be safe _and_ contained.”

“Flat Holm,” Dr. Harper stated blandly. Harkness nodded.

“They have the facilities _and_ the personnel to deal with Rift victims; or those attacked by aliens. It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s the only one we currently have.”

“If he survives, he’ll need counselling, though,” Dr. Harper warned. “He can deal with a lot, but I doubt that even he’d be able to put _this_ away and return to his daily routine as if nothing had happened.”

“He’d hate it,” Harkness said. “And where would we find anyone fit to work with him anyway?”

“What about Emilia?” Dr. Milligan suggested. “She’s already worked with the survivors of Canary Wharf; and she has a high enough security clearance to know about such things. Besides, she’s already in Cardiff, working with the soldiers on the UNIT base.”

“That’s another problem for another day,” Harkness said. “Let’s deal with first things first.”

“You mean getting him locked up in a cell on Flat Holm,” Dr. Milligan said.

Harkness shrugged. “We can’t keep him in _St. Helen’s_ , as we’ve seen. And we don’t have the facilities here to treat somebody in his condition.”

“He’ll have to be monitored around the clock,” Dr. Harper said. “Call in Rhys; I’ll go with them and stay with Teaboy.”

“And I’ll have to start the search for the third victim,” Swanson sighed. “Keep me informed, Harkness, or so God help me, you’ll _wish_ you could stay dead.”

“What makes you think I don’t wish it already?” Harkness returned. “I promised to share with you everything we might find, and I will. But if your bosses think they can snatch Ianto from Flat Holm, they’re mistaken. The place has a security grid that can stop armies – alien armies – and we won’t hesitate to use it. You can tell Henderson that.”

“Is that a threat, Captain Harkness?” Swanson asked coldly.

“No, it’s a warning,” Harkness replied in a similar tone. “We protect our own. And now if you’ll excuse me – I have to see that Ianto gets locked up in a high security room on Flat Holm.”

He stormed off, and Dr. Harper began to disconnect Jones from the alien lie detector.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“He’s taking his very hard,” Swanson commented. “I’ve never seen him so out of it before.”

“He may not show it, but Ianto means a great deal to him,” Toshiko replied quietly. “They’ve just begun to rebuild their relationship – and it was a complicated one from the start – and now _this_. If Ianto dies, part of Jack will die with him… the better part, I’d say, because he won’t have anyone to keep him from falling to pieces.”

“What about the rest of you?” Swanson asked.

Toshiko shook her head. “We’re just his friends; his colleagues. We’ll do what we can, of course, but… You must know, Kathy, that Jack’s gone through horrible things while he was missing: captivity, torture, more deaths than I can count. He needs Ianto to deal with the trauma; given who – what – he is, he can’t really go to a shrink to be treated for PTDS.”

“No, I can’t imagine that he could,” Swanson agreed.

“Without Ianto, I fear for his sanity,” Toshiko added. “He doesn’t have the luxury to kill himself when it becomes too much. Well… not permanently.”

Swanson needed a moment for that to sink in.

“You mean he’s tried to…?” she trailed off, guessing the answer already. Toshiko nodded. 

“Ianto keeps track on the numbers, and he covers the trails, but one notices things,” she murmured. “Right after his return, it was almost every day. It’s become gradually less frequent, but once in a fortnight he still shoots himself in the head.”

“And that counts here as normal?” Swanson was shocked.

Toshiko sighed. “I confronted him about it once. He told me that in those few moments before he comes back he can have peace. Asked If I’d begrudge him that little peace, too. We never talked about it again. But there’s a reason we aren’t supposed to enter that little bunker of his under the office.”

“To allow Jones to clean up after such… episodes,” Swanson nodded in understanding. “But I thought he no longer lives on the base. He’s got a penthouse now, hasn’t he?”

“He moved into Owen’s old place, yes, but he’d never off himself there,” Toshiko replied grimly. “For him, suicide is a private matter; he always commits it here. Whenever he stays for the night, unless it’s work-related, the dry cleaner bills usually skyrocket on the next day.”

“So if Jones dies…”

“…we’ll be back to cleaning blood and brain tissue from the walls on a daily basis,” Toshiko finished for her. “Only that we won’t have Ianto to do it. I’m not looking forward to that.”

“And I’m gonna be sick, I think,” Swanson muttered. “When I think you can’t shock me anymore, you always prove me wrong. How can you people live like this?”

“That’s Torchwood for you,” Toshiko said with a shrug. “People often complain about our attitude; that we behave as if we’d own the whole city. But they’d be running away, screaming, if asked to do the things we have to do.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the solitude of her lab – even though it wasn’t much bigger than a walk-in closet – Sara Lloyd felt supremely content. Here she could shut out the outside world, including her colleagues with their unsolved emotional problems and complicated relationships, and concentrate on the only thing that really counted in an investigation: facts. Hard scientific facts.

As a scientist and an ex-SOCO-member, she was used to work with facts. She left the wild theories to the others; Captain Harkness in particular. Theories could easily mislead one. Facts, if seen in the right context, could not.

Of course, finding the right context was not always easy.

She placed the sample Dr. Jones had brought back from the crime scene – the strange, greyish white substance from under the dead girl’s fingernails – under the microscope. The structure was… interesting, to say the least. She knew she’d seen something like that before, but she couldn’t remember where. She’d worked on so many cases with SOCO, and she didn’t have a memory like her new boss.

Fortunately, she had all sorts of cool alien tech at her disposal. She could perform a molecular scan and measure any possible energy readings the sample might emit. And she could test its reaction to various chemicals.

Molecular scan first, she decided. She removed the object glass from under the microscope and laid it into the narrow vertical slot of the molecular scanner. She adjusted the settings, asked for a complete analysis, then she left the scanner to do its thing and turned her attention to the blood sample of the unknown victim.

The identification of the blood type took only minutes. The girl had been 0-negative; that would narrow down the search for her ID considerably. The DNA-analysis would take a lot longer. Fortunately, their alien-enhanced equipment could analyse several blood samples simultaneously. Lloyd started the DNA analysis on the victim’s blood, and then she brought forth the sample of unknown, viscous white liquid also found at the crime scene.

“It seems to be organic,” she muttered, filling a tiny amount of it into a phial to ready it for the centrifuge. “Let’s see what it’s made of.”

She put the phial into the centrifuge and started it. At the same moment the molecular scanner beeped, having finished its cycle. She stood to check the results; then she took a second look.

“ _Chitin_?” she murmured in surprise.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeannie McKay has been borrowed from _Stargate: Atlantis_. Obviously. However, she has a very different fate here, although not necessarily a different background. I needed a brilliant scientist, and she was so wasted in that other series, so I thought I’d bring her aboard.
> 
>  **Warning:** disturbing images in this chapter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 10**

An hour later the Torchwood team – plus Martha Jones and Kathy Swanson yet minus Ianto, Rhys and Owen – was sitting in the conference room. This being a scientific investigation (for the time being), Tosh was calling the shots. Jack held back, keeping Jenny at his side. She’d been invited in the hope that she’d be able to provide some more insight into the methods of their enemy.

“The substance under the second victim’s fingernails was chitin,” Lloyd told them. “The molecular structure is similar to that of the carapace of our local insects; however, the chemical compound is nothing I’ve seen before. Also, it’s extraordinary hard and resistant, although the molecular chains seem to be breaking down – that’s how it got under the girl’s fingernails, most likely. She couldn’t have scratched it off. But if it was already crumbling, even so slightly…”

“Do we know who the girl was?” Emma asked quietly.

Swanson nodded. “Dr. Sato’s face recognition software has managed to identify her in record time. Her name was Maggie Hall; she was a student and worked in a 24-hour deli shop. She was heading for home when she was attacked and killed, the poor thing.”

“I’m so, so sorry!” Jenny’s eyes were full of tears. “It’s my fault. The _eraser_ was looking for me, but it couldn’t have a very good image, so it went after someone similar. And now two girls are dead because of me.”

“Three,” Swanson corrected. “I’ve just got the call: the third victim has been found.”

“Where?” Jack asked.

“In Splott, near the crash site,” Swanson raised a hand. “I know what you’re gonna say: that Jones couldn’t possibly be there and so he can’t be the murderer, at least not in this case. Well, I’m sorry, but he could. The third victim was killed well within the time he was missing from the hospital. In theory, he would have had enough time to murder her and get back to kill Maggie, too.”

“But if he did, we’d have found him, passed out, laying next to that girl’s corpse, and Maggie would still be alive,” Trevor pointed out.

“That’s what we _think_ ,” Tosh corrected. “We can’t prove that his blackouts have anything to do with the murder cases; or that he hadn’t killed them during a completely confused state. For the police, only hard proof counts.”

“I’m afraid so,” Swanson agreed.

“No, that’s all right,” Tosh said. “That’s the way of things, so we’ll have to find acceptable proof. What about the other substances found at the crime scene?”

“The blood test came back clean,” Lloyd reported. “The girl – Maggie – had neither alcohol nor drugs in her system. Hair analysis shows that she hadn’t taken any drugs in the last six months, either. Probably never. She must have been a good girl; a bloody shame that she had to end like this, but life is rarely fair as we know.”

“And the white stuff?” Tom asked. Lloyd shrugged.

“Analysis is still running. We know what it’s made of, we know it’s organic… fairly acidic, too. But I have no idea what it is – not yet. It’s similar to the body fluids of certain Terran insects – fire ants, to name one – but…” she shrugged again, clearly at a loss.

“But it _is_ alien, isn’t it?” Tosh asked. Lloyd nodded.

“Oh, yes. It’s got a low meson energy reading, just like the chitinous substance. That’s usually a sign that something’s come through the Rift.”

“Not very surprising,” Jack muttered; then he looked at Jenny. “Any ideas?”

“I don’t know much about the _Hithon_ ; nobody does,” Jenny admitted. “But it’s said – well, the _Shanelan_ told me – that their assassins have a biomechanical armour that enables them to survive in space, at least for a short while. Their brains and some inner organs are transplanted into those armoured suits, and they _meld_ with their armour.”

“Now, why does this remind me of the Cybermen?” Jack asked rhetorically, and Tosh became deathly pale. Jenny, though, shook her head.

“No, it’s different. _Erasers_ are given different bodies for each mission, depending on the species living on their target planet. _If_ they survive the mission, they get extracted from the armour and put into a stasis tank – until they’re needed again. The more missions they complete, the less of their original body is left.”

“And how does that help us?” Mickey asked.

“It doesn’t,” Jenny said. “I think, though, that this _eraser_ is injured; its suit was probably damaged by crossing the anomaly… I mean, the Rift. That white stuff must be either blood or some fluid that allows it to operate the suit. Like many insects, they have a way to communicate chemically; telepathy wouldn’t be enough for dealing with machinery.”

“Biotechnology, eh?” Lloyd asked, perking up in interest. Jenny nodded.

“I think so, yes. I can’t be completely sure, of course.”

“Those hypothetical injuries didn’t slow it down, it seems,” Andy said thoughtfully. “How are we supposed to kill it? Somehow I don’t think that even the Big Gun could take it out.”

“Chemical warfare,” Jack said. “Lloyd, try to figure out which chemicals could erode or destroy its suit. Without protection, it would be vulnerable.”

“Let’s hope so,” Andy muttered while Lloyd gave a simple nod.

“What kind of weapons do these guys have anyway?” Mickey asked. “Laser pistols? Exploding bullets? Flamethrowers? Or do they spit acid in our face?”

“On the large scale, _Hithon_ ships use plasma cannons against other ships,” Jenny replied with military precision. “If they want to destroy entire planets, they send in the _Xi’sa_. The true strength of an _eraser_ lies in stealth and sudden attacks, though; _and_ in telepathic warfare.”

“What do you mean with telepathic warfare?” Tom frowned.

“ _Hithon_ assassins are capable of killing other beings with the power of their minds alone,” Jenny told them matter-of-factly. “They suggest their victims a certain way of dying and the victims will even show the symptoms.”

“So these poor girls…” Swanson trailed off because it sounded too outlandish – and too horrible – to be killed by suggestion. How could she protect a city full of unsuspecting blonde girls from _that_?

“They had the very real experience of life being squeezed out of them, slowly and mercilessly,” Jenny said. “It only happened in their minds, of course, but that doesn’t change the outcome, as we could see.”

“How could we know that the alien didn’t simply throttle them?” Mickey asked doubtfully.

“Full body armour,” Lloyd reminded him. “Gauntlets made of this chitinous stuff would have caused extensive bruising.”

“The second victim _had_ bruises on her neck,” Swanson pointed out. Lloyd nodded.

“Yes, but only to the extent one would expect by a victim throttled by an average man. Besides, those were likely psychosomatic symptoms. What I don’t understand, though, is how the traces of the armour and of that white liquid got onto the girl. If the assassin didn’t even need to touch her…”

“It still had to get close to her,” Jenny replied. “They’re short range telepaths; can’t kill somebody from across the town, fortunately. The closer the get, the quicker the kill… unless they want to play with their victims first. This one clearly didn’t.”

“What about Ianto?” Jack asked. “Why didn’t it kill him? To use him as a scapegoat?”

“Well, he surely makes a convenient one,” Swanson commented dryly.

“True, but I think the _eraser_ did try to kill him first,” Jenny said. “However, his mind is too strong… or his shields work too well for that. Excellent training, by the way. In any case, he must have formed an accidental bond with the _eraser_ and most likely sees things through its eyes from time to time.”

“Which makes him extremely suspicious, of course,” Jack muttered unhappily. “But how did he get to the crime scenes each time?”

“He’s probably drawn to them by the _eraser_ ’s presence,” Jenny replied thoughtfully. “ _If_ he’s close enough to begin with.”

“And that’s why he wasn’t found in Splott, out like a light, after the third victim got killed,” Swanson concluded. “He was probably too far away to be influenced. We’ll have to view the CCTV records of the time period when the third murder happened. If we can find him somewhere else, that would be a big step to clear him from suspicion. Cos I doubt that Detective Inspector Henderson would buy into the idea of a telepathic killer.”

“Wait a minute!” Tosh interrupted, a frightening idea occurring to her suddenly. “This telepathic bond – does it work both ways?”

“I really don’t know,” Jenny confessed, “but logically, it should. Why do you ask?”

“Because if it does, then Ianto’s in danger,” Jack replied, understanding at once what Tosh was thinking. “If this alien killer is drawn to him, too, it could find him by simply following their link. Mickey, Andy, let’s go!”

“Where?” Mickey asked, while Andy was already on the move. Police training could do that to an ex-constable.

“To Flat Holm,” Jack replied. “We’ll try to catch up with Rhys’ car before the _eraser_ does.”

“And if you run into it, what then?” Swanson asked. “Do you have a gun big enough to knock it out?”

“We’ll take the biggest calibre and pray,” Jack said with a shrug.

“No,” Tosh rose from her seat. “This is not a question of calibre. You’ll need something different… _and_ earplugs.”

After that mysterious statement she hurried off to her lab. A minute later se returned with a hand gun that looked a lot like a Star Trek phaser – the original version of it.

“What is this?” Jack eyed the thing doubtfully.

“A sonic blaster,” Tosh replied. “Just a prototype, of course, but I hope it’ll do the trick. I haven’t figured out yet how to counteract the very unpleasant sound effect, hence the need for earplugs. Just don’t let any stray Time Lords switch it with a banana again.”

“Bananas are good,” Jenny stated innocently. Tosh pulled a face.

“Not for me; and they won’t help against a crazed alien assassin, either. _This_ might.”

“I can help you with the sound effect later,” Jenny offered.

“Later,” Tosh agreed. “Jack, it won’t kill the assassin, based on what Jenny has told us, but hopefully will knock it off long enough for us to divest it from its armour.”

“How?” Jack asked. Tosh shrugged. 

“I don’t know. Biochemistry is Lloyd’s area of expertise.”

“I can’t whip up a biochemical weapon at will, out of nowhere!” Lloyd protested.

“Just find me the chemicals that would eat away the sodding armour,” Jack said. “We can always find a drugstore on our way and go shopping.”

“You make it sound so simple,” Lloyd muttered.

“He’s right, though,” Tosh supported Jack. “If the Slitheen could be beaten by simple vinegar, who knows, perhaps this guy has a chink on its chitinous armour, too.”

“In theory perhaps,” Lloyd replied, not really buying the idea. “All right, I’ll do what I can, but no promises.”

“SUV is ready,” Mickey reported via earpiece.

“Thanks, Tosh, you’re the best” Jack pocketed the sonic blaster. “Well, Tom, PC Andy, let’s go.”

“And me,” Jenny said determinedly.

Jack shook his head. “No way. I can’t put you at risk.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Captain,” Jenny said sharply. “I’m a soldier. I’m the one who knows the most about our common enemy, since I’ve already fought them. And, most importantly, I’m its _target_. If noting else, I’ll be able to distract it while you do whatever you can to knock it out.”

“Yeah, and what if it manages to kill you _before_ we knock it out?” Jack asked. “What am I gonna tell your father, should he ever show his face again?”

‘It would take a stronger telepath than a _Hithon_ assassin to kill a Gallifreyan,” she replied. “And don’t drag my Dad into this; it’s not his business. Besides, could he have been bothered to stay for my funeral, he knew I was alive. I’d probably be travelling with him right now, and we wouldn’t have this problem to begin with.”

“It isn’t his fault,” Jack protested, but Jenny was not in a forgiving mood.

“Yes, it is. I love him and I miss him terribly, but he should drop the habit of running away and leaving it for others to pick up the pieces.”

That was unquestionably true; Jack still dreaded the possibility of telling the Doctor that he’d got his daughter killed by some murderous alien assassin.

“Ianto will have my head for this,” he murmured.

“No, he won’t; _unless_ we take out the _eraser_ , he won’t be around long enough to skin you alive,” Jenny warned. “Let’s go.”

“Remind me again, who’s supposed to give the orders here?” Jack muttered, but he was heading to the cog door already.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The _eraser_ had found refuge in an abandoned factory hall, somewhere outside Splott, where it could hide between the rows of shut down machinery till nightfall. Things were _not_ going well, and it needed to rest and work out a new strategy. Contact to the War Masters or to the Tactical Division would be welcome in its situation, but there was no chance for that. So it had to continue on its own.

Its body armour had been damaged in several places while it had crossed the anomaly, allowing the dangerously high ultraviolet radiation of the planet’s sun to reach its vulnerable organs through those small chinks. It wasn’t too bad yet, but the cumulative effects would eventually kill it.

If it didn’t starve first, that is. The fluid nutrients filling the armour, keeping it alive and enabling it to operate the complicated machinery at the same time, were slowly seeping through the hairline breaches; and it had no means to repair those breaches, _or_ to replenish the nutrients. Time had become an issue. It had to complete its mission before initiating self-destruction, so that the bipedal primates populating this world wouldn’t be able to track his way back to the Hive.

So far, it had been unsuccessful. Three times had it thought to have hit its target – only to realize that it had hit one of the locals instead. It had suggested them a death that would seem convincing, of course, but the danger of being caught before it could have completed its mission grew with each wrong target. It was not good, not good at all.

And then there was the local male it had accidentally met while hitting its first target. His mind was remarkably ordered and too well-shielded to accept any death suggestions – and he apparently knew the _eraser_ ’s true target. Why else would he be drawn to the dead females? As if he instinctively knew where the eraser would hit next.

Could he be tracing it telepathically? No, his species was too primitive for that. Perhaps they’d simply become linked at the first encounter by accident, in which case he didn’t represent any true danger for the mission, merely an annoyance.

It didn’t matter. Once the mission was fulfilled, the _eraser_ would be dead, too, and all traces wiped out. The locals would probably think the young male had hit all the targets and execute him for murder. A perfect solution.

First, however, the true target had to be found, and the fact that the homing beacon had been neutralized was a serious setback. The _eraser_ had returned to the crash site, in the hope to find any traces that would lead him to the locals who had taken the target’s ship, and with their involuntary help the target, too.

So far no good, and it was running out of time.

Still, it couldn’t leave as long as the central star of the system was high upon the sky. The radiation was well beyond safe levels – how could these primitive bipeds survive under such conditions? Without its armour, the _eraser_ would already be dead, and with the armour damaged, the end wasn’t too far.

It had to find its target, soon. Failure was not acceptable. It had to protect the Hive. To die before removing the threat it had been sent to remove was out of question.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
At about the same time, Dr. Emilia Fox was sitting in the consultation room of Dr. Martha Jones at the UNIT base outside Cardiff. She was typing up her report about the therapy sessions with the three young UNIT soldiers currently unfit for full duty. Commodore Sullivan expected daily, coded reports from her about any progress the three might be making – especially his grandson.

Unfortunately, the only one of the three Dr. Fox had any real hope would make full recovery was Private Harris. The big, burly, ruggedly handsome soldier still had the occasional nightmare, but otherwise seemed to have overcome the lasting effects of Sontaran mind control.

His fine motorics were still not up to his usual standard, but physical therapy could deal with that. Dr. Fox estimated that Carl Harris would be declared fit for duty in another two, perhaps there months, tops.

His close friend, Stevie Grey, was a different matter. Physically everything was in perfect order with Private Grey; he could have been cleared for duty any time – had he not suffered panic attacks whenever he had to face a commanding officer. Even such a jovial, easy-going superior as Sergeant Zbrigniew could intimidate the living daylight out of him. 

He lived in mortal fear of Corporal Bell, the elderly secretary of Colonel Mace, who – granted – wasn’t called the Iron Hag of UNIT for nothing, And even worse, he nearly wetted himself every time he was called into the colonel’s office.

According to Harris, Grey had always respected his superiors beyond usual measure. But it had only risen to such paranoid levels _after_ his encounter with the Sontarans. Otherwise he was competent and level-headed, not to mention a crack shot, yet in Dr. Fox’s opinion it would take years of intensive psychotherapy before he could return to normal duty – if ever.

Dr. Fox shook her head and turned her attention to her main concern and hardest case: Private Ross Jenkins.

There she had very little hope. As Dr. Jones had suggested, the psychological problems of Jenkins originated in his physical injuries. Before _those_ were healed, there was no chance that a therapy would do any good.

His newfound addiction to computer games didn’t help things, either.

If Torchwood really had access to nanotechnology, and if they could find somebody who actually _knew_ how to use it – and that was a very big IF – then perhaps there was hope to heal Jenkins physically. 

Whether he’d ever truly fit in with UNIT as a common soldier while everyone knew about his family connections was another question.

Perhaps it would be better for both sides if Jenkins got an honourably discharge and found himself a different job. But who would hire a damaged ex-soldier who could no longer even drive a car? 

Dr. Fox sighed, finished her report, encoded it and sent copies to Colonel Mace, the Brigadier and Commodore Sullivan. She had the feeling that the commodore wouldn’t be happy with the results.

Then she checked her schedule and saw with relief that she had only one appointment left for today: to visit an old patient, one of the survivors of Canary Wharf, who’d lived in a psychiatric hospital called _Providence Park_ in Cardiff for the last two years. Ever since she suffered a complete breakdown in the UNIT lab where she’d worked after the destruction of Torchwood London.

A shame, really. She’d been such a gifted scientist, and everybody had thought that she’d make it back to a semi-normal life. Very few of the survivors did, but she’d been a promising candidate.

So far, only Ianto Jones and Trevor Howard had been able to put their lives back together, without extensive therapy and ungodly amounts of psychopharmacy. Dr. Fox wondered if working for Torchwood had anything to do with _that_ – and if yes, whether it could be a solution for others, too.

She powered down her laptop, put it back into its case and slung the strap over her shoulder. She was glad to leave the UNIT base. It was a rather depressing place.

Especially with the near-invisible presence of that MI5 agent – what was her name again? Jones? No, Johnson! – looming at the horizon all the time. Freaking out everyone by her mere presence. Nominally, she was here to smoke out a supposed terrorist cell in Cardiff. Her true intentions, however, remained unknown, and the consensus was that they had to be something a great deal more sinister.

Emilia Fox shook her head, annoyed with herself. The last thing she needed was to get infected by her patients’ paranoia. Besides, she had things to do. A patient waited for her in _Providence Park_.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 _Providence Park_ turned out to be a relatively new hospital as hospitals in Cardiff went. It was barely forty years old, a plain, white building in the style of – well, whatever counted as modern in the 1970s. Upstairs, on two levels were twelve bedrooms for the residents – it was a private institution, so all patients had their own chambers – and downstairs the dining room and lounge was for their use as well.

Two consultation rooms – for the psychiatrists – were also downstairs, together with the small offices of the hospital administrator and the head doctor. There were also bunkrooms for the staff, in case they had to remain in the hospital beyond their duty shifts.

“Ms McKay is waiting for you, Dr. Fox,” the receptionist sitting behind a desk in the lounge said when she checked in.

“That’s _Doctor McKay_ to you,” Dr. Fox corrected coldly. It always angered her how patients in such institutions always got degraded automatically, as if what they had done and achieved before their hospitalization didn’t count anymore.

This was particularly true for Jeannie McKay. The young Canadian scientist was absolutely brilliant. She had two doctorates – in theoretical astrophysics and in mechanical engineering – as well as a Master’s degree in computer sciences. She’d been hired by Torchwood London right after her postgraduate year because of her groundbreaking theories and her instinctive understanding of previously unknown technologies. She had been exactly the kind of young, bright and eager person Torchwood Headquarters usually went for.

She’d been working for Torchwood barely a year when the Battle of Canary Wharf happened. She’d been saved in the last moment from the cyber-conversion unit – the Cybermen had just been about to start her conversion when the Void opened and swallowed them up. That she’d managed to work for UNIT afterwards, at least for a while, was a miracle in itself.

That her marriage with a good-natured but absolutely clueless English teacher had not survived those horrors, on the other hand, was far less surprising. Neither was the fact that she’d completely lost it when her still-husband had left to go back to Canada and took their little daughter with him.

Dr. Fox knew that efforts had been made to secure Jeannie the right to at least see her daughter on a semi-regular basis. They ran through UNIT-channels, as she’d been working for UNIT lately; a process started by the Brigadier and not yet stopped by Colonel Oduya’s cost-saving tendencies. But for those efforts to succeed, Jeannie would have to become an ambulant patient at the very least; and she was still light years away from that status.

In fact, she was still on suicide watch seven/twenty-four, by two very capable and experienced nurses, paid by Torchwood Three. Ianto Jones kept an eye on all sixteen survivors of Canary Wharf who hadn’t killed themselves in the recent years – or hadn’t chosen Retcon to begin with.

Not that choosing Retcon would have saved anyone by default. Three out of the seven choosing that option had managed to die in the meantime, due to freak accidents they could have easily avoided. The human mind was a strange thing, always good for a surprise; not always for a pleasant one.

This being her first visit in _Providence Park_ , Emilia Fox accepted the offer of a young orderly to escort her to a small outbuilding in the garden, where the particularly complicated cases were housed. It was connected to the main building by a roofed walkway but still offered the more traumatized patients some privacy, even within the hospital itself. The outbuilding had six bedrooms altogether, only three of which were currently occupied.

“We don’t have here many of those at the moment,” the orderly explained. “Aside from Dr. McKay only two other ladies; although calling them _ladies_ is probably an exaggeration. One of them is an ill-tempered former policewoman with a memory loss. The other one a very young girl who believes that she’s murdered at least a dozen men.”

“And? Has she?” Dr. Fox asked. The orderly shrugged.

“Not according to the police, she has not. Detective Swanson says she’d been assaulted outside some night club and the shock must have unhinged her somehow. A shame, really. She’s such a nice girl, this Carys, and it breaks one’s heart to see her father visit her, trying to get through to her, while she’s just sitting there with those vacant eyes, mumbling about the people she’s supposedly killed.”

“That’s harsh indeed,” Dr. Fox agreed; she’d seen enough similar cases to know how little the chance of at least partial recovery was. “Just out of curiosity, how exactly does she think she’s killed those people?”

The orderly gave her a funny look. “That’s the weirdest part of all,” he replied. “Apparently, she killed them with sex.”

“ _During_ sex, you mean?” Dr. Fox clarified, but the orderly shook his head.

“No, doctor. She’s deadly serious about having killed a dozen or so blokes _with_ sex. Don’t ask me _how_ she thinks she did it, but she can’t be talked out of the idea that that’s what happened,” he shrugged. “I told you it was weird.”

“Sounds completely impossible,” Dr. Fox agreed. “What about the policewoman with the amnesia?”

“Oh, she’s a different one,” the orderly pulled a face, clearly not fond of the patient in question, which was somewhat unprofessional, but it happened. “She was supposedly involved in some undercover operation, got a head injury and forgot the last couple of years of her life.”

“Completely?” It was not such a rare phenomenon, but sometimes the memories resurfaced all by themselves.

“Well, more or less,” the orderly said. “She does get those weird flashbacks from time to time, but that’s all.”

“That’s promising nonetheless,” Dr. Fox’ interest was piqued, even though she’d come to see a different patient originally. “What causes the flashbacks? Is there some sort of stressor?”

“Now that’s the really unusual part of it,” the orderly admitted reluctantly, as if not expecting her to believe him. “They happened whenever she occasionally met Carys in the lounge or the dining room.”

“Then you should encourage such meetings,” Dr. Fox suggested. “Make them happen ‘accidentally’ and see what happens.”

“We can’t,” the orderly sighed. “Whenever it happens, it causes Carys tremendous stress. Her blood pressure would skyrocket, she’d go into spasms; in fact, we have to see that they never run into each other. That’s why we separated them from the other residents; in the outbuilding they get their meals in their chambers.” He stopped in front of a half-open door at the far end of the outbuilding. “Here we are. Go on in, Doctor, you’re expected.”

“Thanks,” Dr. Fox knocked briefly, waited for Jeannie’s _Enter!_ , and then went in, looking around with interest to get a first overall impression of the place.

She liked what she saw. It was a bright, sunny room, with windows on two sides, overlooking a wide stretch of ground and the driveway and lawns, respectively. It had a very airy feel, good for someone with heavy depressions and irregular yet frequent panic attacks. One could breathe here, and gloomy moods had very little chance to linger.

Jeannie McKay was sitting in a comfortable, stuffed armchair near one of the windows, reading something that had a great deal of mathematical equations in it. She was a lovely, though rather plain blonde in her early thirties, with haunted blue eyes. She wore her hair in a loose and rather unruly French twist and no make-up at all.

Both the armchair and her civilian clothes were clearly her own. Permanent residents of _Providence Park_ were allowed to bring in any personal items that didn’t represent a threat for them – or for the other patients – and nobody was ever forced to wear one of those horrible hospital gowns. Conditions in the hospital were meant to ease any depressive tendencies, not to increase them.

Jeannie spotted Dr. Fox and recognized her at once, of course. She’d been in therapy by Emilia for almost a year after Canary Wharf, and they got along very well.

“Em, it’s so good to see you!” she exclaimed, rising from her chair; they hugged like old friends that, in a sense, they were. “I wasn’t sure you’d be able to make it.”

“I’d have called in time if I couldn’t,” Dr. Fox replied. “You know I’d never let a patient – or a friend – hang like that. So, Jeannie, how are you doing in these days?”

“Getting better; slowly, in small steps. In _very_ small steps,” Jeannie admitted with a sigh.

Dr. Fox nodded in understanding. “Anything I could do to help?” she asked.

Jeannie shook her head. “I don’t think so. I mean, the doctors here are very good at what they do, and the rest simply has to sort itself out… it’s just so lonely here. So lonely and so… so boring, you know? I hardly ever see anyone but the staff and the other residents. I mean, sure, Ianto and Trevor come to see me from time to time, and we can at least talk about the past, which, I think, we all need. But they’re so very busy, and I’m… I’m just _bored_ , you know? I’m a scientist, a good one – my brain needs to be occupied.”

“You could write a book while you’re here,” Dr. Fox suggested.

“And who would ever read it?” Jeannie pulled a face. “My research was related to scavenged alien tech, experienced with in secret labs that no longer even exist. I could never publish anything; even if sitting in a psychiatric hospital hadn’t ruined my reputation beyond repair.”

Dr. Fox nodded thoughtfully, because all this was very true indeed. Anyone who’d ever worked for Torchwood and hadn’t died a horrible dead at a young age – or taken Retcon – could only hope to work for another secret government organization for the rest of their lives. And Jeannie had already blown her chances with UNIT – not that it had been her fault, but that didn’t really count. It was a shame, really, having her brilliance wasted in Providence Park, while she could have done so much in just the right place.

Speaking of which… Dr. Fox suddenly got an idea, remembering her own considerations earlier in the afternoon. Sure, those had ranked around the UNIT soldiers damaged in the Sontaran invasion, but perhaps there would be a solution for Jeannie, too.

“Have you thought about working for Torchwood again?” she asked.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, this is not _that_ Flat Holm episode. Part of the chapter simply takes place on Flat Holm Island, that’s all.
> 
>  **Warning:** disturbing images in this chapter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 11**

Andy Davidson determinedly took the driver’s seat while Mickey was helping Jack to load the individual parts of Torchwood’s Big Gun™ into the back of the SUV and was not the least moved by Mickey’s angry protests.

“With you or Jack driving, we’d have a lethal accident – _or_ get stopped by the police – within ten minutes,” he pointed out. “Besides, even if I _do_ go beyond speed limits, my ex-colleagues are more likely to look the other way than when either of you does it.”

That was certainly sure, and so Mickey shut up and let him be. Andy grinned at Jenny. “Care to take the passenger seat?”

Jenny nodded enthusiastically, ignoring Captain Harkness’ unhappy expression.

“What is this Flat Holm where we’re going?” she then asked, in a voice too low for the other two on the back seat to hear. Somehow she had the feeling that her curiosity might not be appreciated in this particular case.

“It’s a limestone island in the middle of the Bristol Channel,” Andy explained, also keeping his voice low. “In earlier times, it was used as the starting point for the Mission of Seafarers, being the most southerly point of Wales; then it was the site of a sanatorium for cholera patients, then an important part of the defence line. Right now, however, it’s just deserted scrubland.”

“And why are we going there?” Jenny asked, because this clearly wasn’t the whole truth. “You aren’t planning to set out your boss on a deserted island, are you?”

Andy snorted. “Of course not. But Torchwood has a… an asylum on Flat Holm Island. One where we hide the Rift victims from the rest of the world.”

“What are those Rift victims and why would you want to hide them?” Jenny asked with a frown.

“People who have accidentally fallen through the Rift and were returned somehow,” Andy explained in a whisper. “I don’t really understand how it happens – you should ask Tosh. Or Trevor. Fact is, they experience… _something_ out there and come back in a state that makes them unable to lead a normal life. They’re… they’re sick in ways you could never imagine. Well, _you_ probably can, being who or what you are, but the rest of us… Anyway, Captain Harkness set this place up when he took over Torchwood Three, to have them cared for. Told the staff they were subjected to experiments that had gone wrong.”

“And they believed it?” Jenny was honestly surprised. Andy shrugged.

“People _always_ believe _everything_ when you tell them the bloody government is to blame,” he said cynically.

Jenny shook her head in bewilderment. “And you’re planning to leave your boss in that place?”

“What else can we do?” Andy sighed. “It’s a real shame, though; Ianto’s the most decent bloke you’ll ever meet, well, save for Rhys perhaps, but Flat Holm is the only place to keep him safe. The security measures are stronger than in Fort Knox, and the staff knows how to deal with dangerously delirious patients. We…”

He was interrupted by a blue streak of swears coming from Captain Harkness on the back seat, in a language that Jenny’s brain automatically identified as Galactic Standard. She refused to consider _how_ she could know _that_.

“What’s wrong?” she asked instead; in English, for the two locals’ sake. She doubted they’d understand Standard.

“They’re on the ferry already,” Captain Harkness muttered. “Rhys must have broken all speed limits in the book.”

“So what’s the problem?” Mickey asked. “Putting a few hundred cubic miles of sea water between him and that homicidal bug… this is good, ain’t it?”

“Ask Jenny, she’s the expert,” Captain Harkness replied tersely.

Jenny shrugged. “If you’re asking me if an _eraser_ can swim, the answer is that I don’t know,” she answered in all honesty. “But that armour of theirs can withstand the vacuum of space. I don’t think a little salt water would do it any harm.”

“So, even if it can’t swim, it can walk the bottom of the sea; and a telepathic link ain’t a scent that could be washed away by water,” Captain Harkness summarized.

Jenny nodded. “Afraid so, Captain. Which means you’ll need a boat, too.”

“That isn’t a problem,” Andy said. “I know a lot of boat-skippers here. Some of them owe me a favour or two, back from the time when I was still with the police. We won’t have to wait for the return of the ferry; but it will cost us a good tip, and we’ll have to carry the boxes for the Big Gun. Those boats can’t carry the SUV.”

“There are two of us; we’ll deal,” Captain Harkness replied. “Floor the bloody accelerator, will you? I don’t think we can afford to dawdle.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Andy did as he’d been ordered, and fifteen minutes later they reached the coast – just in time to catch a glimpse of the ferry in fair distance, looking smaller than a nutshell.

“And that would have been our regular transport,” Mickey commented unhappily.

Jenny raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Why would there be regular transport to an uninhabited island?”

“The ferry goes around the coastline quite a bit,” Andy explained. “We pay them a regular fee to stop at Flat Holm Island three times a day, just in case there’s an emergency. And we need to get the supplies there somehow.”

“And nobody asks why?” Jenny wondered. Andy shrugged.

“Nah, they just say ‘bloody Torchwood’, charge us twice the sum they’d charge anyone else, and that’s that,” he looked at Captain Harkness. “Give me a moment, Captain. I see one of my old pals on his boat, and he seems ready for passengers.”

He walked over the gangplank to the neat-looking little boat with the name CHARA painted on its heck. They saw him go aboard, talk to the owner and then shake hands with him. In less than ten minutes, he was back again, looking only remotely smug.

“That’s settled then,” he announced. “Fifty quid.”

“Fifty?” Mickey asked incredulously. “What sort of thieves and cutthroats owe you favours, man? Offer him thirty-five, that’s more than enough for such a short trip,”

Andy rolled his eyes. “Mickey, I’m not being funny. If you wanna haggle, go to Morocco.”

“It’s all right,” Captain Harkness interrupted before the argument could have gotten out of control. “Fifty quid it is; Torchwood can afford it. Grab the boxes and off we go.”

“Open waves, here we come!” Andy sang and obeyed.

The boat owner looked sceptically at the four people, all four of them carrying large cases and crowding into his small vessel.

“Those things look _heavy_!” he protested. “What if you overburden the _Chara_?”

Captain Harkness rolled his eyes impatiently. He placed his case on the desk and fished some more money out of the pocket of his heavy coat.

“That’s unlikely, but I’m willing to reward you for the risk you’re taking,” he said. “Do this for me, and I’ll give you a hundred quid.”

The boat owner looked at the money and stopped protesting.

“All right,” he said, “but only if you all put on lifejackets. I shan’t lose my licence because of you.”

“We will, we will, just stop arguing,” Captain Harkness replied testily.

Another five minutes later they were all standing on the deck, wearing lifejackets, the wind blowing their hair… well, with the exception of Mickey, of course. All _he_ had on his head was stubble. _Very_ short stubble. Jenny, on the other hand, enjoyed the feeling of her hair fluttering in the wind as she leaned onto the railing, looking out onto the grey water.

“I’ve never seen an actual sea before,” she said, “It’s… stimulating, with the wind and the salty air and stuff. I think the _Hath_ would like it, too. But why is the water so grey? Actually, the sky is pretty grey, too. Isn’t it supposed to be blue?”

“Not in Wales,” Andy said, and the others grinned briefly, sharing a joke Jenny couldn’t get, of course. Then they continued to stare forward, trying to figure out if the ferry had already moored at the island.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When they reached Flat Holm themselves a short time later, the ferry was gone and there was no trace of the Torchwood SUV. Captain Harkness didn’t seem worried, though.

“They had quite the advantage on us,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Jenny looked around with interest. All she could see was barren rock; there wasn’t even a visible path – so how did the SUV actually get to… whatever their destination was? The only building she could see was a slender, once white tower with a reed cap, built of withered stone.

“What is this?” she asked.

“A lighthouse,” Andy replied absent-mindedly; seeing her blank expression, he sighed and added. “It’s a signal tower. At night, or in foggy weather, light signals are sent from the upper chamber, to help the ships find their way back to the harbour. Well… used to, before the invention of the radar anyway. Look, I’ll show it you from the inside once we’ve dealt with the current crisis, all right? I promise. Right now, we must hurry up. Captain Harkness starts getting edgy, and trust me, you don’t _want_ him edgy. It’s not a pretty sight.”

Jenny realized that Captain Harkness was already hurrying forward, following a path that existed in his memory only, balancing one of the cases on one shoulder, Mickey hot on his heals. Jenny and Andy grabbed their respective cases and followed suit.

They were heading down the invisible path for some clumsy, withered concrete block buildings, dug into the ground so that they couldn’t be seen from the shore. Suddenly, there _was_ a path, after all; then a long string of stairs leading downwards, and finally a large metal door, painted brown to blend in with the rest of the building.

Captain Harkness tossed the door open with his free shoulder and went in, without a backward glance. Mickey did the same, but Andy stopped for a moment to get his torch out and switch it on.

“It’s bloody dark in there and somebody who ain’t familiar with the layout can easily stumble and fall,” he said. “Stay with me, okay?”

They went down some more steps behind the door and got into a brick-walled corridor. At least Jenny _thought_ that it was brick. Even with the torch, it was very dark in there indeed. There was a buzzing electrical sound, and the dripping of water could be heard somewhere near, but no other sing of life. Not the most inviting of places, Jenny decided, feeling sorry for the young Torchwood director; _she_ certainly wouldn’t want to stay here, not for a single night.

“What’s that sound?” she asked. ‘That buzz.”

“Security system,” Andy replied. “A bit outdated, perhaps, but very reliable. They have their own generator here, so power shortages ain’t an issue.”

That made sense, if they had dangerous – or endangered – inmates to protect, Jenny found.

In the meantime Captain Harkness had reached the end of the corridor, where their way was blocked by another door. He opened a wall panel, revealing a red light and a button, which he pushed briefly, twice in rapid succession. The buzz became louder, and then a deep female voice asked.

“All right, who are you?”

“Torchwood,” Captain Harkness replied, stepping closer to the wall panel, so that the retina scan could confirm his identity. “It’s me, Helen. Let us in.”

“You were supposed to warn us about visitors,” the voice answered in clear amusement.

“You know Captain Cheesecake;” he’s a law unto himself,” Mickey commented, and the voice laughed.

A moment later static hissed and a metallic _thud_ could be heard; then the door opened. Behind it, the corridor was belighted – barely – and a big, dark-skinned woman stood in the doorframe, wearing a red T-shirt, a dark read sweater, dark trousers and a blue headcloth.

“And you know that we’ll always forgive you,” she said to the captain with a gentle smile. “Come in, all of you.”

“Have the others arrived?” Captain Harkness asked in barely veiled anxiety. The woman, whose name was obviously Helen, nodded.

“Doctor Harper and Mr. Williams are about to get Director Jones settled,” she answered. “It’s a sad thing to see the poor boy in such a sorry state. But we’ll do our best to help him.”

“You can’t,” Captain Harkness said grimly, “but keeping him safe will be enough. I’ve called in help.”

Helen looked at the cases in suspicion. “What is in these things?”

“Trust me Helen, you don’t want to know.”

“I do, if you’ve brought weapons in here.”

“ _Weapon_ ,” Captain Harkness corrected. “In singular. Don’t worry; we won’t use it in here. But Ianto needs protection,” he turned to Mickey. “All right, Mickey Mouse, let us put the Big Gun together and take up position at the lighthouse. PC Andy, you can give Jenny the guided tour; then you send Rhys home and take over watching Ianto’s room.”

“What about me?” Jenny asked.

“You can join us, once you’ve had your tour,” Captain Harkness promised. “All right, people, let’s do it. We have no time to waste.”

He and Mickey were already opening the cases, taking out the different parts of the Big Gun and putting them together like pieces of a three-dimensional puzzle. Only that this particular puzzle resulted in something resembling of a rocket launcher – of the high-tech variation of it.

“Come on,” Andy said to Jenny. “I’ll show you around as long as we still can.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The inside of the building didn’t look much better than the corridor leading to it. It must have been some sort of abandoned military outpost before Captain Harkness would turn it into an asylum. The corridor walls were made of concrete in here, painted a particularly ugly shade of blue, and metal doors, marked with chalkboard tables with names on them and peepholes in eye height opened left and right at regular intervals.

Could it have been a military prison once? Jenny wondered. Or an insane asylum? Or was this the remains of that cholera hospital?

In some distance, somebody was playing a string instrument of some kind: the same short, monotonous melody over and over again. At the end of the corridor somebody in a wheelchair was pushed along. Jenny glanced at the chalk board, reading the names. Jules. Alice. Earl. Saeed. Caroline. Only given names; nothing that could have revealed the identity of the inhabitants.

One of the doors stood open, revealing some sort of lounge, with a telly in a cage – why in a cage, Jenny wondered briefly – and watched by a few people with vacant eyes. One of them, a young woman with long blonde hair, had scars on one side of her face. When she caught Jenny standing in the door and looking in, she pulled her hair forward to cover them and left quickly, returning to the room with the name tag “Caroline”.

It seemed that the inhabitants weren’t all locked into their rooms, after all. Only the dangerous ones, most likely.

“What happened to her?” Jenny asked quietly. Andy shrugged.

“We don't know. She’s been here for nearly four years by now but never spoke a word… or made _any_ sound, for that matter. Unlike others, who can’t stop for hours,” he added, when somebody started to scream deeper inside the building.

The screaming swelled on, rising in pitch and volume, until it became a primal howl, something not even remotely human-sounding. Jenny held her hands over both ears, a flash of memory not her own resurfacing: that of a young boy, staring into a glowing gap in… nowhere, screaming in terror… and screaming… and screaming.

When she came to, she was outside, under the open sky again, lying on the ground, and Captain Harkness was bending over her in concern.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “The first visit to Flat Holm is difficult for everyone. I should have warned you, but…”

“You were worried about Ianto,” Jenny interrupted. “It’s quite right, Captain; that wasn’t what got to me.”

“What was it then?” he asked gently.

“A… a memory, I think,” she answered haltingly. “Not one of my own, though. I think I was reliving one of my Dad’s memories.”

“Which one?” he seemed so very intent to know; she couldn’t _possibly_ keep it from him. Even if her Dad would disagree with her decision.

“It’s a childhood memory, I think,” she began. “Gallifreyan children are taken from their families at the age of eight and admitted into the Academy. Novices are then taken to an initiation ceremony before the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality that looks into the Time Vortex. Of those that stare into it, some are inspired, some run away and others go mad,” she gave him a coy smile. “My Dad ran away, you know.”

“No, I don’t,” he replied slowly. “How could I? He never deigned me with _any_ detail of his life… of _any_ of his lives. Not even when he was his former self, and trust me, _that_ regeneration of him was a great deal more decent than the current one.”

He sounded so bitter that Jenny’s hearts went out to him.

“I’m sorry that my Dad treated you badly,” she said in all sincerity. “I’ll share with you all memories that may resurface in the future if you want.”

But he shook his head. “Thank you, but no, thanks. Those are not _your_ memories to share; not really. If he wanted to keep them from me, I have no right to spy on them through you.”

“That’s your choice, of course,” Jenny accepted his help to get to her feet again. “You must remember, though, that those memories _are_ mine now, to a certain extent. The Machine gave them to me, so that I can build up my strength upon them. They are mine to use, and I _am_ willing to share. Whatever my Dad’s done to you, I want to make it right again.”

Captain Harkness gave him a small, genuine smile, the likes of which she’d only seen him aim at Ianto so far. “That’s kind of you, Jenny, but I don’t think you can. Not even your father could fix my condition.”

“I’m not talking about the piece of Vortex that’s within you,” seeing his shock, Jenny smiled. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I’m the daughter of a Time Lord; I share his sensitivities.”

“ _All_ of them?” Captain Harkness asked. “Do I feel _wrong_ to you as well?”

Jenny looked at him and opened her subconscious for the Vortex – something she’d just figured out how to do a short time ago. He felt… strange, indeed, but she could find nothing _wrong_ with that. She opened herself a little more, and then… _then_ she could finally feel it.

“You don’t flow with Time,” she whispered in shock. “You’re… _anchored_ , and Time is flowing _around_ you, like a river around a rock in the middle of its bed. Who… _what_ are you?”

“I’m a fixed point in Time, or at least that’s what your father says,” he replied, his face hard and emotionless. “And that’s why he couldn’t even bear to be in the same room with me. That’s why he left me behind, on a battered space station, full of corpses and Dalek dust, two hundred thousand years from now. I’m _an impossible thing_ , apparently,” the bone-deep hurt was clearly audible in his voice, and for a moment he looked older than the world itself.

“That’s just plain stupid,” Jenny declared forcefully. “Nothing _impossible_ can really exist. You _do_ exist, therefore you _can’t_ be impossible. It’s that simple.”

“Your father saw it differently,” Captain Harkness murmured, his voice bitter.

“Then it’s my Dad who’s wrong,” Jenny said mercilessly. “The others say he was wrong before; and rarely willing to admit it. You don’t feel _wrong_ to me. Strange, yes; different, yes. But there’s nothing _wrong_ with that.”

“Says you,” he replied dryly, and Jenny nodded.

“Says me, yes. I may not be a Time Lord… Time Lady… whatever, but I am a Gallifreyan, with an in-born sense for Time, and I say that you’re all right.”

Captain Harkness sighed and turned away. “I wish I could believe it.”

“You can try,” Jenny replied. “What do you have to lose?” she didn’t wait for an answer; instead, she switched into soldier mode again, scanning the parameter with the small hand-held scanner she’d borrowed from Toshiko. “All clear, Captain. What are we doing now?”

“We go to the lighthouse and wait,” he answered.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The _eraser_ could tell through the telepathic link that its _familiar_ had been moved. It could barely trace the connection across the new, increased distance. That was not good, not good at all. Without its _familiar_ , it couldn’t hope to find its target. And time was becoming more and more of an issue.

Waiting for the system’s sun to set was no longer an option. If the _familiar_ got beyond its reach… it wasn’t a long-range telepath, it couldn’t follow such a weak link across an entirely town. Not even across a town full of telepathically blind creatures, where no other thought impulses could interfere.

Waiting near the crash side had been a mistake, it realized. It should have followed the link during the dark period of the planet and hide somewhere near its _familiar_. It might have already found its target in the meantime. Found and erased… the target _and_ itself. Apparently, the injuries suffered as a result of having been exposed to the polluted atmosphere of this miserable planet had already clouded its sense of judgement.

Well, that couldn’t be helped now, and hindsight was counterproductive anyway. Reasoning was irrelevant. Past mistakes didn’t count – only results did. Logic dictated that – in order to achieve those results – the _eraser_ had to leave its hiding place and take the risk of further exposure by following the fading link to its _familiar_. Now.

It made a quick mental check, made possible by the sensors of its biomechanical armour feeding the data directly into its brain. The armour was damaged, yes, but still fully functional. The weapons were in acceptable condition, too. That was good. It could no longer afford taking the time for a clean and subtle kill, like it had done with the previous targets, the ones that had turned out wrong. The only way to go was now to erase the target, the _familiar_ and everyone else in contact with them – all who might know of its presence – quickly and brutally, and then trigger the self-destruct.

The armour sent a warning that – due to the slow but constant leaking – the nutrition fluid had reached a dangerously low level. The _eraser_ allowed itself an ironic cackle. Typical. It was always the weakness of the organic parts that endangered any given mission. Armours and weaponry could function, even if damaged. The soft organs of the living creature could _not_.

Unfortunately, the reliable technology needed the unreliable organic brain to operate it. Such missions couldn’t be carried out by fully automated drones. The War Masters _had_ tried that – and failed. A conscious mind was still needed.

 _Erasers_ had no regrets. In fact they didn’t even understand the _concept_ of regret. There was only that which had to be done for the good of the Hive: the furthering of the species, the expanding of their territory, the subjugating and erasing of other species. There was only success – or death.

And for this particular _eraser_ , death was an old acquaintance. They had brushed shoulders repeatedly during previous missions. So far, it had managed to dodge Final Failure – for what else could be death if not that? – but it knew that one day it would lose. That was the order of things: everything that lived had to die, their energy absorbed by the great darkness from where there was no return.

Everyone but the War Masters, that is. But the War Masters didn’t really _live_ to begin with, not like other creatures did. They existed as memory engrams, engraved into the collective consciousness of each and every Hive, so that their knowledge and vast experience would be available to all leaders in its fullness and to every individual to a certain level. To the exact level they needed it.

The loss of an entire Hive – unlikely though it was, but in deep space everything could happen – would not lessen that knowledge, as it was shared by all Hive leaders; and added to and expanded by each new battle won, by each new mission accomplished, by each new world they had subjugated. It could not be erased, _because_ it was shared by all, save by the eliminating of the entire Alliance, and that was _not_ happening. No enemy could be powerful enough to beat them.

The _eraser_ still could remember its first and only encounter with the War Masters. Still a fully organic being, selected for the role of an assassin due to its outstanding natural abilities, it had been taken to the memory banks, hidden deep within the Hive ship, and merged with the central interface. The War Masters had tested its abilities, found it adequate for its assigned task and shared with it a small part of their immeasurable knowledge. Knowledge of stealth and weapons and technology and of the ways to kill inferior creatures with the power of its mind alone. 

It was the regular way of initiation for each _Hithon_ , no matter what task they had been chosen for, and the most important moment of their entire lives. A moment they’d always remember. A moment that would drive them on for the rest of their lives.

The _Hithon_ had no concept of any higher beings, and therefore no religion of any kind. They considered themselves the highest form of life and the entire universe as their rightful inheritance. Still, the initiation was the closest thing they could ever come to a religious experience; their very own epiphany.

No, the _eraser_ had no regrets; but if it had, its chief regret would have been that it wouldn’t be able to share its recently gained knowledge with the Hive. About the anomaly and the dangers of crossing it. About a whole new, unknown sector of the galaxy, ripe for the taking. About the difficulties of hunting among a primitive species that generally lacked any exquisite powers of the mind.

All this new knowledge would be lost due to the Final Failure that was closing up with each wasted moment. That was unfortunate, of course. But others would come, eventually, and rediscover the lost knowledge; and this planet, like so many others before, would become part of the Alliance’s immeasurable territory. There was no way around that; it was only a matter of time.

For that to come true, however, the local primates had to remain ignorant of what was coming in their future. It would be unacceptable for them to know and prepare themselves, no matter how useless such preparations would be. The alliance despised wasting resources, and the success of the eraser’s mission would ensure that no such wasting took place.

Mentally bracing itself against the exposure to pollution, high ultraviolet radiation and other lethal circumstances under which the indigenous primates seemed to thrive, the eraser prepared to leave its lair and to begin the Hunt anew.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the private wing of _Providence Park_ , Dr. Jeannie McKay stared at Dr. Emilia Fox as if the psychotherapist had suddenly grown a second head.

“Working for Torchwood again?” she asked in stunned disbelief. “Surely you must be kidding! After all that happened?”

“Yes, _especially_ after what happened,” Dr. Fox replied seriously.

Jeannie kept glaring at her. “You do realize that it’s because of Torchwood that I’m living in a psychiatric institute, don’t you?”

“No,” Dr. Fox countered. “You’re living here because that bastard of your ex left you when you’d have needed him most and took your little girl with him. It’s because of her that you must try to find a way out of here.”

“And that way would lead through Torchwood, of all places?” Jeannie asked doubtfully.

Dr. Fox nodded. “Think about it: you’re a brilliant scientist. What are you doing here, vegetating from one day to another? You’ll never get better this way. At Torchwood, you could do meaningful work. They need people with knowledge like yours who are aware of alien life and alien technology. The Cardiff branch is still understaffed, and you have the necessary security clearance to work for them.”

“I also have a pst-treaumatic sterss syndrome with a less than encouraging prognosis,” Jeannie reminded her. Dr. Fox shrugged.

“So what? Nobody at Torchwood Cardiff is completely undamaged. I think they’ll be able to deal with your problem.”

“I doubt that Jack Harkness would want to hire another one of ‘Yvonne Hartmann’s leftovers’, as he liked to call us,” Jeannie returned with a watery smile.

Dr. Fox raised an eyebrow. “Captain Harkness is no longer the leader of Torchwood Three,” she pointed out. “Ianto Jones is. And since he’s also ex-Torchwood London and knows who you are and cares for you, I believe he could be persuaded to hire you.”

Jeannie shook her head doubtfully. “That won’t work, Em. I’m in no shape to live on my own; or even to drive a car. I’m… I’m too damaged for that.”

“Perhaps you are,” Dr. Fox agreed after a moment of consideration. “But there’s another way. You can remain here, in _Providence Park_ , and continue your therapy. They can send someone to take you to work and bring you back afterwards. And at work you won’ be alone, either. You’d work with old colleagues you already know. You’d be able to occupy that brilliant mind of yours – it would hep your recovery enormously.”

Jeannie was still not entirely convinced. “I’m really not sure, Em. Why would they want _me_ to work for them?”

“Because you’re a certified genius and hard-working; and because you need to work for them as much as they need you to work for them,” Dr. Fox replied calmly. “Let’s face it, Jeannie: once Torchwood, always Torchwood.”

She deliberately fell silent, allowing that statement to sink in for at least five full minutes, while watching the internal struggle clearly displayed all over Jeannie’s face.

“I can at least ask them if they’re interested in hiring a new scientist, without naming you specifically,” she offered.

Jeannie gave her a smile of tentative hope.

“We can try,” she replied slowly.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** disturbing images in this chapter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 12**

The lighthouse fascinated Jenny. While the two men took up defensive positions with the Big Gun (Mickey) and the sonic blaster (Captain Harkness), respectively, she offered to climb up to the top and keep watch, just so that she would get the chance to explore a bit. After all, who knew when would she get another chance to see something like this?

Looking up from the bottom of the spiral staircase was a unique sight, she found. It was as if some invisible power would draw her upward, higher and higher… she simply couldn’t resist. 

Taking two steps at once, she ran up to the top chamber lightly. Running was something that came to her easily; something she really enjoyed. Perhaps it was a Gallifreyan thing. Perhaps it was something she had inherited from her father. That and the fondness of bananas, if the ex-companions she currently stayed with could be trusted – and why couldn’t they?

Again, the ancient machinery in the upper chamber fascinated her. Coming from the time and level of technical development that she did, the mere idea of something completely mechanical was totally alien for her. But it _had_ worked for centuries, according to Andy, so it had to be reliable. Amazing.

She stepped out to the small balcony running around the upper chamber and looked out to the general greyness of the sky, the water and the limestone rock. It was low-tide, the sea had begun to withdraw right after their arrival, and a wide stretch of rocky shore was glimmering wetly; a darker stripe in the all-encompassing grey monotony. 

Once again, she felt sorry for those who had to live on this triste island, either by choice or for their own safety. She hoped that the help Captain Harkness had called for would be sufficient and young Director Jones could be healed enough to return to Torchwood. The thought of him spending the rest of his life in that dank bunker broke her hearts – and she knew it would break Jack’s heart, too.

She liked them both. She liked the entire Torchwood team and wondered what her father could probably have against Torchwood in general. Yes, there was the fact that the Institute had originally been founded to capture him, but hadn’t he spent considerable time on Earth as an UNIT consultant without being bothered?

Jenny decided that more research on her father’s time spent on Earth was in order. Toshiko would help. To understand herself, her own motivation, she needed to know where she came from; and learning more about the enigmatic Doctor whose genetic material – and partially whose memories – she shared was the best way to do that.

She scanned the shoreline again and some kind of movement caught her eye, still far out in the water. She adjusted her goggles, focused the distance – and paled a little, despite her bravery. This was the hour of truth, and the outcome far from certain.

“Captain,” she touched her earpiece. “It’s here.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack didn’t know what exactly he’d expected the _eraser_ to look like, but it most definitely hadn’t been _this_. The closest thing his unconscious mind had come up with had suggested something like an oversized Cyberman: huge, metallic and generally clumsy. Something slow and _stupid_.

What emerged from the waves instead appeared to be some kind of enormous, chitin-armoured worm, not entirely unlike a caterpillar in its shape but covered with jagged chitinous spikes that, at second sight, were probably rows upon rows of highly advanced biomechanical sensors. Two pairs of short, sturdy legs, segmented like those of a grasshopper, were attached to the middle and to the end of its body… armour… whatever, making it move forward with alarming speed; presumably also enabling it to walk upright or to make long jumps.

It had several segmented appendages right below its head, probably concealing ray weapons or projectile launchers or whatever kind of weaponry its species had come up with. Said head was covered by an elaborate helmet, shaped a bit like those of high-speed bikers and attached to the rest of its armour by an accordion-like neckpiece.

Jack’s experienced eye recognized some of the built-in technology, despite its alien nature: surveillance systems that gave it an almost 360-degree-vision, atmospheric compensators, targeting scanners and the crack lines that suggested that the three-piece visor could be opened outwards like a triple window. There were other pieces of technology not even he could identify; but again, the armour was supposed to sustain its wearer in the vacuum of space, so it _had_ to be extremely advanced. _And_ redundant.

Still, something seemed to be wrong with it. As the _eraser_ approached their position by way of bizarrely elongated jumps, Jack saw that there were long cracks in its armour, in no recognizable pattern; and those cracks were filled with – _foam_?

“It’s injured!” he realized with a jolt of hope. “Apparently, crossing the Rift had damaged its armour more than we have assumed… that foam must be the fluid filling it reacting with our atmosphere. How can we use _that_ to our advantage?”

“The organic creature within is vulnerable without the technology protecting it,” Jenny said thoughtfully. “If we could break the armour further open, exposure to the local atmosphere _might_ weaken it enough, perhaps even render it more or less helpless.”

“Perhaps?” Mickey asked in doubt. Jenny shrugged.

“I can’t be sure; nobody can. But that’s the only chance I can see.”

“I’ll take that chance,” Jack said. “Let’s give it a try. If the sonic blaster Tosh has built me works as it’s supposed to work, it should be able to splinter the armour a good deal wider… _if_ I get close enough.”

“That won’t be easy,” Jenny warmed. “ _Erasers_ are heavily armed; it would kill you before you can get a good shot at it. We must distract it somehow long enough for you to get the right angle for the shot.”

“What if we start shooting at it with he Big Gun?” Mickey asked. “At least the impact should give Jack the chance to sneak up to it.”

Jenny nodded. “It’s worth a try. I just hope you’ve got quick reflexes. These… _things_ are said to be highly intelligent and demonically fast.”

“No shit,” Mickey’s face became ash grey as he watched the long, ground-eating leaps of the _eraser_ and the drastically lessening distance between it and their position. “How are we supposed to take out _that_?”

“Using the element of surprise and a great deal of luck,” Jack replied grimly and tossed one of the modified rifles Mickey had brought back from the alternate dimension to Jenny. “Take this. I don’t know how much good it can do, but it took out Daleks and Cybermen at Canary Wharf; it ought to have at least _some_ impact on our bug.”

Jenny slipped into military mode with the ease of slipping into comfortable, well-worn shoes and checked the rifle.

“Nice,” she said with professional appreciation. “What’s our strategy?”

“You two take the enemy under fire from two opposite sides, and I’ll try to sneak up behind it while it’s distracted,” Jack explained succinctly. “Give your best, kids – I have the unpleasant feeling that we won’t get another try at this.”

“You’re right: we won’t,” Jenny looked at Mickey. “I’ll take the left flank. We’ll fire in a left-right patter, in no particular rhythm. When it’s focused on one of us, the other will drive its attention away. The rest depends on the captain.”

“Nice of you to take the pressure off me,” Jack muttered, but he knew that Jenny was right. Not that _that_ would make him feel any better. “All right, children, let’s do this.”

Not needing any further instructions, Jenny and Mickey silently moved into position… and waited. They all knew that the waiting wouldn’t be long.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The _eraser_ located the three primates as soon as it emerged from the waves, of course. Its armour might be damaged – and the exposure to the contaminated sea water that had seeped in through the cracks had already begun to dissolve the organic parts – but the sensors were still functioning at an acceptable level of efficiency.

It scanned the primitive creatures waiting near the tall structure the function of which remained unclear for it; and they were armed. The surveillance systems reported a heavy projectile weapon – not much of a threat, usually, but a potential danger now that its armour was already broken in several places – an unknown design of ray weapon with impressive firepower one wouldn’t expect to find on such a backwater planet, and another, smaller weapon that the systems could not define. Still, based on the size of it, it wasn’t likely to cause much harm.

All in all, the weaponry of the local primates was pathetic. Did they really expect to take out a _Hithon_ assassin with their primitive toys?

The surveillance system now automatically switched to bioscan. Two of the creatures registered as regular inhabitants of their miserable mudball, although they had unusual energy readings; especially the one with the indefinable weapon. But they were of the species originating from this planet; the ones called themselves _human_.

The third one, however… the readings indicated a binary vascular system, a body temperature half of the other two primates and a respiratory bypass system - and the _eraser_ felt the immediate satisfaction of a successful Hunt fill its entire being. Finally, it had found its intended target. It could fulfil its task and die in the joyous knowledge of another mission accomplished.

It had to hurry up, though, before its body – what was still there of it anyway – would succumb to the lethal planetary environment. The _eraser_ forced its weakening mind to focus and instructed the jump legs of the armour to contract before they’d catapult it into the last long leap.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack noticed the contraction of the segmented legs and guessed what that could mean.

“Pay attention, Mickey Mouse,” he said through gritted teeth. “Wait until it jumps; then fire a salvo to knock it off-balance in mid-flight. I doubt that it could change directions by then; but even if it can, the momentum would serve to our advantage.”

Mickey nodded tersely and bit his lip. He had very good hand-eye coordination and lightning-fast reflexes – playing all those video games in his misspent youth had turned out to be good for _something_ , after all – but he couldn’t be sure that it would be good enough. And if he failed… well, he refused to even _think_ of that, as the mere thought would have lamed him in the worst possible moment.

At the same time, the _eraser_ jumped, aiming clearly at Jenny; its grotesquely elongated body seemed to extend in the process like a rubber band and its segmented upper limbs appeared to splinter, revealing the weapons hidden within. Four limbs and four weapons emanating chemical fire – presumably each and every one powerful enough to kill all three of them and level the lighthouse at the same time. Or the entire island.

Jenny threw himself to the floor and rolled out of the way of the quadralupe rays that burned deep, smoking holes into the limestone rock, reacting with it and making it… _bubble_? Was the _Hithon_ ray acid-based? It would make sense; many Terran insects used acids as protective weapons, too. 

Ants, for example. Mickey hated ants. They found a way everywhere and were sheer impossible to eradicate.

“But we can always try, couldn’t we?” he muttered, pulling the trigger and hitting the underside of the creature that was still in mid-leap with a dozen heavy bullets, each one enough to kill an elephant on its own.

The impact knocked the… _thing_ off its intended path. It landed on its back – or what Mickey _thought_ was its back, it was really hard to tell – and Jenny came running up, firing at it with all the modified rifle could give.

She landed a lucky shot, hitting the armour at a previously damaged part and tearing one of the armed limbs off.

 _One off, three more to go_ , Mickey thought, finding that thought – for some reason he couldn’t explain – hysterically funny. _It’s like tearing off the legs of a fly, one by one_.

This particular “fly”, however, could easily have become the revenge for all the others he’d maimed in his childhood. Because the _eraser_ rolled back to its hind legs in half a second and launched another attack, single-mindedly ignoring everyone else but Jenny.

“Look for cracks in the armour!” she yelled, somersaulting out of the line of the acid rays and following her own advice.

One of the _eraser_ ’s legs was hit, at the very moment when it would propel itself into the air again. It lost balance and collapsed into a rather undignified leap on the rocky floor, dissolved limestone sizzling and bubbling all around it from the shots gone awry.

Jack recognized the chance and ran up to the temporarily disabled creature, firing at it from Tosh’s experimental sonic blaster at the highest setting. His own ears popped loudly and he could feel the searing pain as his eardrums broke, realizing belatedly that he’d forgotten about the earplugs.

But the chitinous armour _did_ splinter along the already existing crack lines under the sonic bombardment as it was supposed to do. As usual, Tosh has done an excellent job.

Unfortunately, Jack himself was partially incapacitated from the side effects and so he didn’t notice that one of the _eraser_ ’s weapons was aimed directly at him. Not until the burning pain hit him squarely in the chest and he fell backwards – dead, with a huge, ugly, smoking hole burned through his entire upper body.

One could have looked through his chest like through a peephole on one’s door.

“You bloody fucking murderous bug!” Mickey howled in rage and, aiming at the widest crack in the creature’s armour, fired all remaining bullets into it, practically tearing it apart from the inside out.

This time all the bullets hit true. The remaining limbs of the creature jerked spasmodically, the weapons shooting random rays of burning acid everywhere… then it went suddenly quiet, still trembling but clearly unable to cause any more harm.

Mickey ejected the empty cartridge and rammed a fresh one into the Big Gun, approaching the creature carefully.

“Is it dead yet?” he asked hoarsely.

“Almost,” Jenny came closer, too, still aiming her rifle at the _eraser_. “Unfortunately, so is Captain Harkness.”

“Don’t worry; he’ll be back with us in no time,” Mickey eyed the creature warily. “I wonder what they really look like… inside in this thing, I mean. If they’re all soft and wobbly like a jellyfish – like the Daleks, once their cast is removed.”

“We can take a look if that’s what you want; just keep the gun aimed at it,” Jenny carefully set her rifle aside and fished the universal key out of her pocket. “All we have to do is to open its visor; this should do the trick nicely.”

Mickey’s jaw dropped to the floor. “You’ve got a sonic screwdriver? Just like your Dad?”

“Actually, it’s a universal key,” Jenny switched on her cherished tool, “but it works on the same principle. Now, if I adjust the settings to the energy readings of the helmet and do _this_ …”

The top of the little device was glowing blue, and in the next moment the three movable pieces of the alien’s helmet swung outwards without warning. In the inside, they were covered with intricate micromachinery, with the apparent function to deliver all kinds of information to the creature within and to enable it to operate the multiple functions of the armour.

Behind the visor, the face of something shockingly akin to Spiderman was revealed, right down to the brick-patterned coloration and the black compound eyes. However – unlike Spidey – it _did_ have a mouth. A rather wide one, filled with what looked like the ragged teeth of a handsaw.

“Mandibles,” Mickey muttered. “Bloody mandibles. They must have been man-eating monster insects once. Assuming that they _were_ any humans on their homeworld to begin with. I hope there weren’t.”

But Jenny wasn’t listening to him. Looking down at the _eraser_ , she caught its last, fleeting thoughts; its despair about having failed. Suddenly she could feel those thoughts focusing on her.

 _Who are you?_ The _eraser_ demanded. _I never failed before. What are you that you could thwart me?_

 _I’m the last child of Gallifrey_ , Jenny replied proudly. _Progeny of the last of the Time Lords and carrying his knowledge and his memories. You never stood a chance. Nor will the Alliance._

 _Impossible!_ It protested. _You’re but one. We have an empire of planets, billions of servants. You have nothing._

 _I’ve got friends,_ Jenny replied. _Something you can never understand. Let go now. Your journey ends here._

The _eraser_ didn’t answer. It began to convulse violently, and Jenny suddenly realized its intention. She grabbed her rifle and shot directly into the unprotected face of the creature, holding her finger on the trigger steadily until there was nothing but indefinable organic matter left in the helmet.

 _Burnt_ organic matter.

Mickey fought hard the urge to throw up on the spot.

“Was that really necessary?” he asked. “It was dying anyway, wasn’t it?”

“It was about to initiate self-destruction,” Jenny said, “probably by setting off a chemical bomb with a mental impulse. I couldn’t allow _that_ to happen. We didn’t know the extent of destruction it could have caused.”

“Are you sure about that?” Mickey seemed doubtful. “About the bomb, I mean.”

Jenny tapped her temple with a finger. “Telepathic, remember? I could feel its intention – and that there was very little time left to prevent it.”

Mickey accepted that with a nod, but his mind seemed still whirling.

“Your dad wouldn’t have done it himself,” he finally said with a vague gesture at the _eraser_ ’s remains. “He didn’t like to get his hands dirty. Still doesn’t, I guess.”

Jenny shrugged. “I’m not my Dad. I was bred and trimmed to be a soldier. I may have adopted Dad’s ideals as a conscious decision, but in an emergency, my conditioning still kicks in… fortunately, I’d say,” she paused, but when Mickey didn’t argue with her, she changed the topic. “Tell me; has he really exchanged Captain Harkness’ sonic blaster for a banana?”

Mickey grinned like a loon. “According to Rose… yeah, he did. I wasn’t travelling with them at the time, but Rose said Captain Cheesecake was pissed off about it; he was very found of that blaster, you see. Of course,” he added thoughtfully, “the Doctor probably regretted it when they got into a tight spot, not so much later.”

He looked at the dead alien – or what was left from it. “Well, I oughtta find some body bags for this guy. I think Lloyd and Owen would be happy to take it apart and see what used to make it tick.”

“But shouldn’t we look after the body of Captain Harkness first?” Jenny asked. “We can’t just let him lie here… dead…”

Mickey stared at her in surprise. “You don’t know?”

“What?” she returned, irritated. “ _What_ should I know?”

“I thought you had the Doctor’s memories,” Michael shook his head, baffled. Jenny rolled her eyes.

“Yes, I do, but only where Time Lord knowledge is considered,” she clarified. “I don’t get the personal stuff; well,” she corrected herself, “not yet. So what should I know about Captain Harkness?”

“He’s not dead,” Mickey said.

“Of course he’s dead,” Jenny threw an uncomfortable look at the badly damaged body. “Nobody can survive _that_ ; and besides, he doesn’t have a heartbeat.”

“All right,” Mickey conceded, “he _is_ dead – _now_. He‘s not gonna _stay_ dead for much longer, though. He never does.”

Jenny stared at him in shock – then she obviously had a lightbulb moment.

“The Vortex energy I felt in him… _that_ ’s what anchors him as a fixed point in Time!” she realized with a jolt.

“And what brings him back every time he gets himself killed,” Mickey added.

Jenny shuddered. “Oh! That must be very unpleasant.”

“Jack compares it with being dragged over broken glass,” Mickey said grimly; he looked at Jack’s corpse. The ugly, burnt hole in that broad chest was almost completely healed by now. “He’ll be coming around any time now; you should go to him and hold him. It hurts him coming back; the more violent his death has been, the worse the return. It’s usually Ianto who’s him in those moments; but without Ianto, I think he’d prefer you to be for him rather than me.”

“Why?” Jenny was honestly surprised. Mickey was Jack’s friend, wasn’t he? Why would he prefer a stranger?

“Because your Dad never was,” Mickey told her bluntly.

Jenny was fairly shocked by that piece of information but decided to pursue the matter alter. Instead, she hurried over to Jack, sat down next to him and lifted his head so that it would rest upon her knee, hoping that he wouldn’t mind the intimacy once he’d come around.

A moment later Jack gasped back to life, his entire body convulsing with the effort, his eyes wide open and unseeing.

“Ianto!” he gasped, reaching around blindly.

“Afraid not,” Jenny answered ruefully, “but you can see him as soon as you’ve got a grip on yourself.”

Jack looked up to her in confusion, dishevelled blonde hair registering vaguely in his still befuddled mind. “R-Rose?”

“Sorry, neither,” she replied. “I’m Jenny, remember? Jenny Smith, the Doctor’s daughter.”

Jack squeezed his eyes closed several time to clear his mind, and the events previous to his most recent death started to come back sluggishly.

“Oh, crap,” he said in a resigned tone. “Got myself killed again, didn’t I? And ruined the coat, too. Ianto will be royally pissed with me. Have we at least won?”

Jenny nodded. “That we have. The _eraser_ is dead, the self-destruct device is neutralized, and Ianto ought to feel better, now that the telepathic link’s been severed.”

Jack accepted her help by clambering to his feet. “I’ve got to check on him, _now_!”

He still felt out of his depth a bit. This last death had been very painful and, based on the size of the hole in his clothing, fairly violent, too. He’d have to ask their resident geeks what kind of weapon that had been.

“Use your earpiece,” Jenny suggested, but Jack shook his head.

“Can’t. The building is completely shielded, for the safety of the inmates. I’ll go in and see how he’s doing. Help Mickey with the clean-up; I’ll send you Andy with a body bag in a minute.”

“Sure,” Jenny gave him a little nudge. “Go and look after Ianto. We’ve got everything under control here.”

“You wish!” Mickey muttered, but he didn’t protest when Jack headed back to the asylum on still somewhat uncertain legs.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“So,” Jenny said when they were out of Jack’s earshot. “Tell me: who’s this Rose person?”

“She was my girlfriend,” Mickey’s mood darkened visibly. “Until she met your Dad, that is. They outwitted some alien monsters together – I still don’t know all the details, and frankly, I don’t care – and then he offered her a trip in the TARDIS. He was supposed to bring her back within twelve hours, but then the TARDIS had the hiccups or whatnot, and it brought them back twelve _months_ alter.”

“She,” Jenny corrected.

Mickey gave her a blank look and a confused frown. “What?”

“TARDISes are generally referred to as _she_ ,” Jenny explained.

That took Mickey a moment to digest, but then he shrugged and went on with his story.

“Anyway, there was a great lot of upheaval during that year. Rose’s Mum hung the whole estate full of ‘missing’ posters, with her picture on them, and the police… the police thought I’d _killed_ her.”

Jenny winced. “Ouch!”

“Yeah,” Mickey agreed morosely. “And when they _finally_ came back, we found ourselves in the middle of a Slitheen invasion – which, mind you, _I helped_ to prevent, by hacking into the defence network and firing that bloody torpedo in the last second – and when it was over, Rose dumped me and went off to travel with your Dad.”

“But _you_ didn’t go with them,” Jenny said. It was not a question.

“Not that time, nah,” Mickey admitted. “Met them again when they came to Cardiff to refuel the TARDIS, though – something to do with the Rift, I’m not really sure. By then, they’ve already picked up Jack, and after we’d prevented another Slitheen take-over, I went with them for a while.”

“But you also spent some time in an alternate dimension, didn’t you?” Jenny asked. “Toshiko mentioned something…”

Mickey nodded. “We got there by accident, and I stayed there, helping the people fight the Cybermen. My counterpart was a freedom fighter, and as my Gran was still alive over there.”

“Your _what_?” Jerry interrupted, not familiar with the expression.

“My grandmother,” Mickey explained. “Well, not _mine_ , obviously – she’d died shortly before I left – but I didn’t want her other self to be left alone… so I stayed as long as she was alive.”

“In the end you _did_ come back, though. Why?”

Mickey shrugged. “When my Gran died, there was nothing to keep me there. _This_ is where I belong.”

Jenny nodded her understanding. “What happened to Rose?” she then asked.

“She, too, ended up in that parallel dimension… where she dumped me for the second time,” Mickey shrugged again. “Your Dad had regenerated in the meantime, becoming much younger and quite hip, and Rose developed a mad crush on him… one that wasn’t entirely one-sided. So, you’ll probably understand that I’m not exactly a fan of your Dad, after he’d screwed up my entire life so thoroughly.”

“I can’t blame you,” Jenny said slowly. “I’m surprised, though, that he might have developed feelings for this Rose character. What I know about Time Lords would suggest that such a thing was highly unlikely.”

“Well, Tosh keeps saying that something must have gone wrong with his last regeneration,” Mickey replied with another shrug, “and the longer I think about it, the more I tend to agree with her. I mean, the previous version of your Dad was an arrogant wanker, too, what with calling me ‘Mickey the idiot’ all the time and stuff, but at least he was a _reasonable_ wanker. This new one, though… a nine hundred-year-old, powerful alien behaving like a lovesick teenager is a scary sight.”

“It seems that everyone at Torchwood holds a grudge against my Dad,” Jenny commented a little sadly.

“Nah,” Mickey waved off her concern, “only those who’ve actually _met_ him. Well, with the exception of Tosh, that is. She has very fond memories of his previous self and somehow manages to see the current regeneration as a different entity.”

“It isn’t, though,” Jenny pointed out. Mickey nodded.

“I know. But if it helps Tosh to keep the good memories, who am I to talk her out of it?” he spotted a curly blond head emerging from between the rock boulders. “Oh, good, there comes PC Andy with the body bag. Let’s pack this guy in, it starts to get a bit smelly.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack, following Helen’s instructions, found Ianto’s room in the maximum security section of the asylum easily, despite the lack of a name tag on the door. When he burst in, he saw Ianto lying in bed, hooked up to more instruments that it seemed humanly possible. The indicators on the monitors all showed low, constant levels, but Owen, who was sitting at Ianto’s bedside, didn’t seem too happy.

“I assume you’ve dealt with the alien,” he said.

Jack nodded. “Yeah, it’s dead. How’s Ianto doing?”

“Well, the unusual brain activity has topped a few minutes ago,” Owen replied evasively. “I guess at the same time when you offed the alien.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Owen didn’t answer, and Jack felt a previously unknown level of dread rise within him until he could barely breathe. “Owen, talk to me! What happened?”

“Well,” Owen said darkly. “The good news is that Teaboy’s brain ain’t gonna melt, now that the telepathic link’s no longer there. The bad news is that he’s slipped into coma, and I have no idea how to wake him up again.”


	13. Chapter 13

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 13**

Beth Halloran was doing some long-overdue filing in the tourist information shack – poor Emma was overwhelmed by the task of stepping into the place of Director Jones, even if only temporarily, so the least Beth could do was to help her deal with the low-security tasks she’d been given clearance for – when a geriatric green Nissan parked directly before the Millennium Centre. 

Out stepped a middle-aged but still fairly attractive woman, with shoulder-length auburn hair, wearing jeans and a cashmere pullover… and old and comfortable one, revealing that she preferred being comfortable to following whatever new fashion trend swept over the British Isles – a sentiment with which Beth whole-heartedly agreed. The woman locked her car, swung her oversized handbag over one shoulder and headed straight to the tourist office – like somebody who knew what purpose the small shop truly served.

Beth was still recovering from her surprise when the door opened and the woman marched in. Clever, experienced eyes scanned the dimly-lit room quickly and were soon fixed on the empty wall hiding the secret entrance of the Hub… as if she knew it was there.

Beth tried not to panic. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

That, surprisingly enough, earned her a warm, genuine smile.

“I think you can,” the visitor replied. “I’m here to see Jack Harkness.

Beth opened her mouth to deliver one of the standard phrases of denial, but the older woman stopped her with a reproving look and a raised hand.

“Save your breath; I know all the excuses. Jack and I are old friends, and I’m here because he asked for my help. Something about one of the team being seriously ill.”

Beth’s mind whirled. The only team member currently incapacitated was Director Jones, who’d been in a coma for a week and a half. Captain Harkness hadn’t mentioned having called for help, but again, he rarely told Beth anything of importance. Still, there _was_ a distinct possibility that…

“Are you a doctor?” she asked doubtfully, and the visitor laughed.

“Good Lord, no! Although it would have made my Aunt Lavinia deliriously happy, had I chosen to study medicine – or anything even relatively scientific. No, dear; I’m a journalist, and it’s my _contacts_ that Jack has need of. So, if you could stop interrogating me and call him instead, it would save us all a great deal of time.”

Beth still wasn’t so sure that she should let this never-before-heard-of visitor into the Hub, but she was at least willing to ask Captain Harkness. She picked up the receiver of the old-fashioned phone and called the landline in the office.

“Captain Harkness, this is the reception. You’ve got a visitor,” she covered the microphone with her hand and looked at said visitor. “Sorry, I didn’t get your name…”

“Sarah Jane Smith,” the woman told her readily enough.

“A Ms Sarah Jane Smith, sir,” Beth repeated. “Yes, Captain, less than five minutes ago. Understood, sir,” she hung up and turned back to the visitor. “Captain Harkness will be here in a moment. Would you care for a nice cuppa and a few biscuits in the meantime?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When a good twenty minutes later – he’d been on the phone with Colonel Mace and boy, had that been a shouting party of extraordinary proportions! – Jack emerged from the Hub, he found Sarah Jane and Beth sitting it the small kitchenette behind the bead curtain, having tea with custard cream biscuits… and a conversation about carpet cleaning, of all possibly topics in the universe!

His mind boggled.

But then he remembered that Sarah Jane had a big old house to keep in a habitable condition with only a rather… unusual teenaged boy to help her with that and realized that for women carrying the burden of a household alone this probably was an interesting topic. 

Besides, was it not _this_ what Torchwood fought for? So that ordinary people could worry about taxes and house cleaning and how their kids were doing at school, instead of living in fear of the very real possibility of an alien invasion?

In any case, it was a delight to see Sarah Jane, as always… and not only because she had been a companion once, too. She had the same solid, no-nonsense quality as Ianto – Jack felt _grounded_ around her; he felt that he _belonged_. Just like with Ianto, but without the romantic aspects. He could barely remember his birthmother, but sometimes Sarah Jane reminded him of her. 

Of course, he’d never tell her so. Even mature women tended to react badly when a grown man compared them with his mother.

“Sarah Jane, it’s good to see you again!” he exclaimed, kissing her on the cheek; she blushed involuntarily, and he suppressed a grin. “How are you doing? And how’s Luke?”

“I’m doing well, thank you,” her blush receded gradually as she grew used to the exposure to his pheromones again. “As for Luke, well, he does what all teenagers of his age do: trying to figure out who he is and what he wants from his life. Of course, in _his_ case the answers are a little more complicated.”

“I can imagine,” Jack was one of the very few people who knew about the origins of Sarah Jane’s adopted son. “You should bring him to visit somewhen. Not the Hub,” he added hurriedly, knowing how much Sarah Jane wanted Luke to have a semi-ordinary life, “but Cardiff has much to offer, and we’d be glad to show him around.”

“I’ll think about it,” Sarah Jane gave the same answer as at every other time, and Jack didn’t press. “Oh, by the way, Harry sends his regards.”

Jack shook his head in tolerant amusement. “You’re still seeing him? Yours must be the longest courtship of the planet.”

“Friendship, Jack, merely friendship,” she corrected, but her eyes softened with fond memories. Jack grinned.

“If that’s what you wanna call it…”

“I call it what it _is_ ,” she said, a little more sternly now. “But enough of me; you asked for my help. What can I do for you? Or is it classified?”

“Oh, it’s way beyond classified,” Jack answered grimly. “Come with me, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“All right,” Sarah Jane rose from her seat. “Mrs Halloran, thanks for the tea and the nice chat. We should do that again before I leave.”

“I can take your car down to the parking lot before the police would have it towed away,” Beth offered. “You’re not supposed to park here, you know.”

Sarah Jane handed her the keys without hesitation. “Thanks, my dear. Now, Jack, lead on!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack led Sarah Jane through the hidden passageway and down a well-lit corridor; then to a thoroughly modern lift sitting comfortably amongst all the ancient stonework at the end of the corridor. He ushered her into the lift cabin and the lift started to descend, more quickly than any normal lift would have done. 

_Free fall_ would have been an apt description.

Sarah Jane could feel Jack secretly watching her reaction. Most people probably found the increasing acceleration nauseating, but she had travelled with the Doctor – with different versions of him, in fact – for quite some time. Such minor inconveniences couldn’t bother her anymore – for what was a ride in a quick lift compared with a ride in the out-of-control TARDIS? And she’d done _that_ repeatedly.

She counted the levels that flew past rapidly, marked by the interruption of light whenever they past through solid concrete floors. After the seventh level the lift stopped, the doors slid open, and they left the cabin, standing in front of a huge, cog-shaped door made of heavy metal.

Jack smiled at her and pushed some buttons on his wrist strap. The cog door rolled back slowly to the wailing of alarm klaxons and flashing of orange lights. Jack stepped through the door, practically dragging her after him – then he turned and gave her a smile full of proprietary pride.

“Welcome to Torchwood, Sarah Jane!

Sarah Jane stared at the sight unfolding before her eyes, and – despite the wonders she’d seen while travelling with the Doctor – she was impressed. The Torchwood base, vaguely reminding one of an underground railway station, was _huge_. Huge enough to include the subterranean extension of the water tower she’d seen on Roald Dahl Plass, obviously, with the water pouring freely down into the cavernous room and forming a small pool at the tower’s base.

High up, under the domed ceiling, some sort of flying creature was drawing its circles, as if hunting.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Jack asked proudly. “Come, let’s go to the conference room where we’ll be hopefully undisturbed and our doctors can join us to explain you everything as well as they can.”

He led her down the spiral staircase, their footsteps reverberating against the metal grid in the huge, empty space. The flying creature, having spotted them from above, swept by with the speed of a small airplane, nearly knocking them off the walkway, but Jack didn’t seem concerned.

“Never mind Myfanwy,” he said. “She’s missing Ianto and taking out her frustration on the rest of us. She’s always cranky when Ianto isn’t here; but I have just the thing to mellow her mood.” 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out – a bar of _chocolate_? Unwrapping it, he tossed it into the air as high as he could and called out to the creature.

“Myfanwy! Dessert time!”

The creature, clearly used to getting such treats from time to time, swept down again like a damp engine, caught the chocolate with its huge, razor sharp beak and returned with its prey to safe heights. However, that second sight had been enough for Sarah Jane to recognize the species.

“Have you just fed chocolate to a _pterodactyl_?” she asked, completely stunned.

Perhaps she _should_ bring Luke to visit Torchwood Cardiff, after all.

“Pteranodon, actually,” Jack shrugged. “But yeah, she _is_ a chocolate addict. Ianto insists that she should only be given dark chocolate, though. It’s supposed to be good for her serotonin levels; although our exobiologists are still fighting about the question whether a pteranodon _does_ have serotonin levels or not.”

Sarah Jane was still too stunned to do anything else but blink rapidly, for several moments.

“You, Jack… you and your team have redefined the term _weird_ ,” she finally said.

Jack grinned unrepentantly. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Well, here we are – conference room.”

He opened a glass door and led her into a surprisingly normal, run-of-the-mill conference room – well, save for the level of technology involved in the wall screen and the other gizmos lying on the various shelves.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Several other people were sitting at the long table, some of whom Sarah Jane had already met, some of whom she recognized and some who were complete strangers. She already knew Martha Jones, of course; ex-companions tended to keep in touch when they lived in the same places at the same time, and besides they’d met at the Brigadier’s, right after Martha had been hired by UNIT.

Toshiko Sato, also an ex-companion, was an old friend of course, and the tall, blonde woman in the white lab coat and the bun was Sara Lloyd, with whom she’d made an interview once, way back when Lloyd still had been working for SOCO.

Dr. Emilia Fox was a well-known authority in her field; although they hadn’t actually met before, Sarah Jane recognized her from UNIT files and TV-interviews. The dark-haired, wiry young man with the weasel-like face could only be Torchwood Three’s chief medical officer. But who the sweet-faced blonde girl with the long ponytail and the black leather jacket could be Sarah Jane couldn’t even begin to guess… even though there was something naggingly familiar in her.

“All right, team, say hallo to Sarah Jane Smith, ex-companion and journalist extraordinaire,” Jack said. “Sarah Jane, I think you know everyone here, with one exception,” he gestured towards the blonde girl. “This is Jenny Smith, our newest addition.”

To Sarah Jane’s surprise, the girl jumped to her feet and shook her hand enthusiastically. “Sarah Jane, it’s so good to finally meet you in person! Oh, I’ve heard so much about you!”

For a weird moment Sarah Jane almost had the impression that the girl would ask her for an autograph.

“Later, Jenny,” Jack interrupted. “We’ve got more pressing issues now,” he showed Sarah Jane to an empty seat and cut to the core at once.

“As I’ve already told you, we need the help of an Arcateenian healer – and we need it as soon as possible. Do you think your friend can find us one?”

“Perhaps,” Sarah Jane said evasively. “But I won’t ask her until I know what’s going on.”

Jack sighed. “It’s Ianto. He suffered a telepathic attack from a previously unknown alien species, and it nearly melted his brain; then, after the connection had been severed, he slipped into coma, of which we can’t wake him up. Not without help.”

“I see,” Sarah Jane fell silent for a moment. “Well, I’m not sure what Arcateenian healers actually _can_ do – the only Arcateenian _I know_ is a star poet, so she hardly counts. But I’ve already sent an inquiry, and she promised to find somebody on a short notice – which is why I’m here.”

She got identical blank looks from the Torchwood people, which made her sigh impatiently.

“Look, my friend can’t navigate on Earth on her own. She needs a homing beacon, which this little summoner can provide,” she showed them the instrument in question, “and as it’s bound to _my_ DNA, no-one else can use it. So I _had_ to come… or the Arcateenian wouldn’t, either.”

“No one objects to your presence, Sarah Jane,” Tosh said gently. “On the contrary; I for my part wouldn’t want to face an Arcateenian without you to keep it in its reins.”

Sarah Jane looked at her in surprise. “What kind of problem do you have with the Arcateenians? They’re the gentlest people I’ve ever met!”

“Obviously, you’ve never run into one of their criminals,” Jack said flatly. “Tosh has her reasons to mistrust them; but that’s another story for another time. I’ll tell you later, I promise. Right now, our main concern should be Ianto.”

“Right,” Sarah Jane agreed. “Where _is_ he anyway?”

“On the Intensive Care station of _St. Helen’s_ ,” Jack replied. “Tom Milligan is currently keeping an eye of him – not that there would have been any change for a week and a half.”

“Do you think we can risk summoning an alien to a public hospital?” Sarah Jane asked doubtfully. “Don’t you have a more… secure place that we could use?”

“We do,” the Torchwood medic said, “but Flat Holm isn’t equipped for the care of coma patients; neither has the staff the necessary qualification. Teaboy’s better off with Angie and Milligan.”

“Besides, the inmates of Flat Holm are traumatised beyond help already,” Jack added with a sigh. “I wouldn’t expose them to another alien encounter; not even if the alien in question is friendly.”

Sarah Jane knew what Flat Holm was, of course – Jack had told her about it years ago – and had to admit that Jack was right. The last thing the Rift victims needed was another shock that would inevitably call back horrendous memories.

“All right, then,” she said, “ _St. Helen’s_ it is. When can we go there?”

“Night shift would be best,” Dr. Harper suggested. “We got Teaboy a private room, but the fewer people are nosing around the better. Since Angie has night shift, she can help us to avoid any unwanted attention.”

“And Angie would be…?” Sarah Jane trailed off.

“Angela Connelly, A & E doctor of _St. Helen’s_ and Owen’s girlfriend,” Martha replied.

Dr. Harper shot her a dirty look.

“She’s not my _girlfriend_ ,” he said with emphasis. “We’re just _friends_ … with benefits.”

“Oh, _that_ ’s what it’s called in these days?” Martha giggled. “I thought it was called ‘shagging like bunnies’, but I could be wrong.”

“Look, lil’ Miss Highfaluntin’, I understand that you’re envious,” Dr. Harper was positively fuming. “It must be frustrating, not getting laid, ever, but my sex life is not your concern, so I’d be grateful if you could keep your nose out of it.”

Sarah Jane was a little shocked by the Torchwood doctor’s rather… rude reaction, but the others didn’t seem particularly bothered. Not even Martha, who was just grinning like a maniac.

“Methinks the good Doctor Harper protesteth too much,” she said and everyone laughed.

Dr. Harper, realising that he’d lost, scowled at them but refused to rise to the bait.

“All right,” Jack said, “night shift it is. In the meantime let’s deal with the other stuff. The Rift won’t take a vacation, just because Ianto’s out of the game for the time being. What about our friend the _eraser_? Have you found anything useful?”

Lloyd, Martha and Dr. Harper shook their heads in unison.

“Mainframe is still working on mapping the genome,” the Torchwood medic reported. “It will take a bloody long time, I’m afraid. The remains of the actual creature were badly burned when Jenny gave it the final treatment, but we did get some undamaged tissue samples nonetheless. I can tell you in advance that there was a great deal of genetic tampering, too, beyond the fact that the organs were removed from the original body and planted into that armour… using methods I can’t even imagine, honestly.”

“Unless they’d developed a technology to actually _grow_ the armour around the creature,” Martha added, looking at Jenny questioningly. Jenny shrugged.

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t have any idea. The _Hithon_ are a secretive lot; not even their servants know that much about them. That would create a weakness; and they don’t tolerate any weaknesses among their own.”

“On the other hand,” Lloyd said brightly, “Jenny’s DNA analysis has finally run its cycle. I don’t think the results would surprise anyone, but I can now officially inform you that she’s the genuine item.”

“As if there could have been any doubt, seeing the obsession with the bananas and all the running,” Jack snorted. “I hope the hard facts will placate Ianto, too, once he’s back with us.”

“Speaking of which,” Dr. Fox said, “What are you planning to do with him, assuming that alien healer can wake him up?”

Jack shrugged. “I’ll try to cajole him into taking a few days off – and trust me, that won’t be easy – and then we’ll be back to business as usual, I guess.”

Dr. Fox, however, shook her head. “No, Captain, I doubt that it will be so easy.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked with a frown.

“Mr. Jones will need extensive therapy to deal with the fake memories planted in his head,” Dr. Fox elaborated. “Intellectually he’ll know and accept that they’re fake, but… He’s got a photographic memory, which means that the images will remain and haunt him, most likely in the form of violent nightmares, for a long time. Probably for the rest of his life. It won’t be easy for him; he’d already got enough nightmare material for several lifetimes. He might snap one day.”

“Can’t those images be removed somehow?” Sarah Jane asked. “Perhaps an Arcateenian healer is capable of such thing.”

“And I’d suggest it, were we talking about someone with a common mind structure,” Dr. Fox replied. “But a photographic memory is a delicate thing. I wouldn’t tamper with somebody possessing such a gift, unless it’s absolutely necessary. One tiny mistake and he could end up permanently brain-damaged. It’s just too risky.”

Jack nodded, clearly not happy with the news. “Understood. What’s your suggestion, then?”

“ _Providence Park_ ,” Dr. Fox replied without hesitation. “They’ve got the people, they’ve got the facilities… and I’ve just happened to be offered to take over as head psychiatrist four days ago. I’m actually considering accepting the offer. And if I do, I can personally oversee Mr. Jones’ therapy. And even if I don’t, he’ll need therapy. In my opinion, that would be the safest solution.”

“Perhaps,” Jack allowed reluctantly. “The plan has one catch, though – aside from the fact that Ianto would loathe therapy, of course: Gwen is in _Providence Park_. What if seeing Ianto triggers her memories? She’s beaten Retcon before…”

“Only because you were so eager to get in her pants that you messed up the dosage,” Dr. Harper muttered nastily.

Jack gave him a challenging glare. “Look who’s speaking…”

“I thought we’d all agreed that Suzie’d had a hand in the whole mess,” Tosh intervened smoothly. “But Jack’s right. Gwen and Ianto in the same psychiatric ward is an epic disaster begging to happen.”

“We don’t need to hospitalize Mr. Jones,” Dr. Fox pointed out. “He could be therapied as an outpatient, twice or three times a week. We can arrange the schedule so that the two would never meet.”

“How on Earth did Cooper end up in _Providence Park_ anyway?” Lloyd asked. “I thought we’d sent her back to Swansea, to Tad and Mam, with a convincing story about memory loss due to a head injury.”

“We did,” Jack replied sourly. “In fact, the story proved so convincing that her parents bought it and decided that she ought to get the best treatment one can find in South Wales.”

“Which happens to be in _Providence Park_ ,” Dr. Harper added. “And since they have enough money to pay for the therapy in the private wing, we couldn’t arrange a refusal. We work with _Providence Park_ ; unfortunately, we don’t _own_ the place.”

“Not yet,” Jack said, “but I’m working on it.”

“What?” the others asked in unison. Jack shrugged.

“Considering how many patients end up there because of the Rift, it would make things a lot easier if we could simply buy it.”

“Can we do that?” Dr. Harper asked doubtfully. Jack nodded.

“We can. It’s not _St. Helen’s_ , it’s a private institution, which means it can be sold and bought. In theory anyway.”

“And do you have the means to buy an entire clinic like _Providence Park_?” Dr. Fox sounded less than convinced. Which, considering the overall look of the Hub, wasn’t entirely unfounded.

“Oh, yes,” Jack said. “Ianto has all the funds of Torchwood London at his – well, _our_ – disposal. As long as he uses them for the purposes of the Institute, he’s free to do with them as he sees fit. Buying _Providence Park_ won’t be a problem for us; not a financial one anyway.”

“If you can talk Teaboy into it,” Dr. Harper muttered. “You know how… _sensitive_ he is when it comes to _Providence Park_. Which is why I don’t really think he’d be willing to go there for therapy, either.”

Jack nodded grimly. “Who wouldn’t be, in his place? But I believe I can persuade him about the soundness of the idea; both ideas, in fact.”

“If you don’t over-estimate your influence over him,” Tosh murmured.

“What does he have against _Providence Park_?” Martha asked in surprise. “It is the best psychiatric hospital in South-Wales… and beyond, as a matter of fact."

Jack shook his head. “That’s… very _private_. Ask him when he wakes up. Don’t except an answer right away, though,” he stood. “All right, boys and girls, back to work until night shift. Jenny, you can play catch-up with Sarah Jane in the meantime if you want.”

The Torchwood gang filed out of the conference room, returning to their respective workplaces. Jenny came bouncing over to Sarah Jane, her eyes glittering with excitement.

“Jack says you’ve travelled with my Dad for a long time,” she said eagerly. “Do you think you could tell me stories about it? About him?”

For the first time since parting ways with the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith simply fainted.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When she came to, she was lying on a nondescript bed in a nondescript room – presumably one of the rest rooms for those working late. Jenny was sitting on a stool at her bedside, with a worried expression on her heart-shaped face and a cup of steaming hot coffee in her hand.

“Drink this,” she said. “It’s not as good as Ianto’s, of course – the others say that’s just not possible – but Beth from the reception brews a decent cup, too.”

Sarah Jane wasn’t particularly fond of coffee, no matter who’d made it, but at the moment she really felt the need of a caffeine boost, so she accepted the cup. She had to admit that it wasn’t half bad indeed.

“Thanks,” she said. “I really needed something stronger than tea. How silly of me, fainting life a Victorian lady in distress.”

Jenny, clearly confused by the last comment, looked at her in apology.

”It’s all my fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have sprung it on you without warning. It’s just… I was so _excited_! None of the others knew my Dad before his ninth regeneration, you see, but you… you used to know him much earlier, and for such a long time, and I hoped that you’d tell me more about him. I barely knew him – the most recent _him_ – at all, and…”

“Whoa, slow down a little, my dear!” Sarah Jane couldn’t help; she had to laugh over so much excitement. Like a teenager, really!

She gave the girl a closer look, and suddenly understood why Jenny seemed so familiar. She did have the same excitable nature as the Doctor’s fourth regeneration – that wide-eyed, curly-hared, grinning Bohemian, the one with the floppy hat and the flowing scarf of the impossible colours – but her blonde hair and gentle features reminded those of the fifth. The one Sarah Jane had only met once in person but had seen images of, courtesy of Harry and the Brigadier.

The one who was said to have been mild-mannered and sensitive, wearing his hearts on his sleeves and actually listening to his conscience for a change. The one she’d have liked to know a lot better.

That it would have been _that_ one to set a child into this uncertain world surprised her a little. And who could possibly have been the girl’s mother? Sarah Jane swung her legs over the edge of the bed to face Jenny on more equal terms.

“All right,” she said. “I will tell you everything I know about your Dad; and I’ll tell you stories. But first you must tell me all about you; how it came to your birth and all that. I never knew the Doctor was into domestic bliss.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Several hours later, when the sun was setting outside, they were still talking. Jenny had told Sarah Jane everything about the planned colonization of the planet Messaline. About the Progenation Machine and how the Doctor – the most recent one – had been “processed” and how he had ended up with a genetically identical “daughter”

She explained how they had ended the _Hath_ -human conflict and how the terraforming device had called her back to life, after all had given her up for dead.

“Dad’s already left by then, so he never learned I was alive,” she added, a little sadly. “I’ve been looking for him ever since, but no luck so far.”

“He left _before_ your funeral?” Sarah Jane rolled her eyes in exasperation. “How typical for him; he never stays to help pick up the pieces. Had I known this, I’d have slapped him silly – the current _him_ , the one you've met – the last time I saw him.”

“You’ve met my Dad, the one he’s now?” Jenny was getting excited again. “Who? When?”

“Oh, it must have been at least two or three years – for _me_ anyway, I have no idea when it was for _him_ ,” Sarah Jane shrugged. “I was working on a case – and apparently, so was he. He was with that dumb blonde girl, what was her name again? Rosie… no, Rose!”

“Rose Tyler; Dad’s ultimate nemesis,” Jenny said morosely. “The only companion ever who’s made him act stupidly… or so the others tell me. A good thing she got trapped in that alternate dimension. She might have destroyed him one day.”

“She wasn’t with him when you were born… cloned… whatever?” Sarah Jane asked in surprise. Jenny shook her head.

“No; he travels with a redhead named Donna now. I think she’s good for him. She doesn’t let him get away with much, and she doesn’t have a crush on him. I like her,” she beamed at Sarah Jane. “She gave me my name, you see? She named me Jenny. It’s a good name, don’t you think?”

“Sure it is,” Sarah Jane didn’t ask why this Donna had to be the one to give Jenny a name. The Doctor had probably been too shocked by having suddenly become the father of a fully grown daughter. He’d never dealt well with personal stuff.

“All right,” she said. “My turn now. I promised to tell you stories, didn’t I? Let me start with the one how we met Harry for the first time. It’s a very funny one, starting with your Dad regenerating and…”


	14. Chapter 14

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 14**

Trevor Howard came in for the night shift almost an hour too early – which was nothing new. He loved his work at Torchwood Three, just as he’d loved to work for Headquarters; with the additional bonus of a close-knit, familiar group of co-workers that he found very nice. That, and the continued presence of Toshiko Sato, certifiable genius and the loveliest lady he’d ever met. Working with Toshiko was absolutely inspiring, and the fact that he was also easy on the eyes didn’t harm things.

As expected, he found Toshiko in the main lab and was greeted by an absent-minded smile. On the tabletop on her right sat a large crate with Torchwood stencil; she was examining a small artefact with the molecular scanner.

“What are you doing here?” Trevor asked conditionally, placing his lunch bag next to the crate.

“Emma’s found a lot of unlabelled Class D artefacts somewhere in the Archives,” Toshiko replied, without taking her eyes off the scanner. “I’m running a full check so she can put them away.”

“That’s hardly the job of the Head Scientist,” Trevor commented neutrally. Toshiko shrugged.

“Just utilizing the time while the Rift is quiet. I’ve finished my experiment and there isn’t enough left from my shift to start a new one.”

“Need a hand with that?” Trevor offered.

“Sure, if you have the time,” Toshiko still wouldn’t look at him, which was strange. Why would she act so oddly?

They’d been friends for years, had bonded after Canary Wharf over the death of Dr. Rajesh Sing, a good, decent man with whom Trevor had worked and Toshiko had an on-off relationship with – as much as it had been possible over the distance between London and Cardiff. After Trevor had been hired by Jonesy, they’d developed a good working relationship that never suffered from the more… _personal_ feelings he nurtured for her. As a rule, they could talk about everything; which made Toshiko’s current behaviour out of synch.

“So, what can I do?” Trevor asked, looking around.

“Go through the reports and find out when these artefacts came through the Rift,” Toshiko said. “I’d normally put Emma to do it, but she’s already drowning in work, now that she must do Ianto’s part, too... well part of it.”

“No problem,” Trevor said. “Still have an hour before my shift would start. I brought you lunch,” he handed her a sandwich. “Smoked salmon – your favourite, right? Wanna have a beer with that? Jonesy always keeps some in the fridge of the tourist office. Says that spending a day in the dusty Archives is thirsty work.”

“Actually, I’d need something stronger,” Toshiko muttered. “But I can’t afford it while I’m still working.”

Trevor frowned. He’d been working for Torchwood Three for roughly a year now, and in that time he’d rarely seen Toshiko having anything stronger than a cocktail – and even _that_ only for recreation purposes, never to drown her frustration. She was a much disciplined person, with a high tolerance level for stress.

“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.

Toshiko ignored his question in favour of the artefact in her hand. “Any idea when this came through? It’s got a low meson energy reading.”

“No; I haven’t even started looking,” Trevor took the artefact from her and laid it to the side. “Toshiko, talk to me. I’m your friend, remember? What’s wrong?”

Toshiko still refused to look at him. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay? It’s… personal.”

“But you _would_ talk about it to Jonesy, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s different. He… he was here when it happened.”

“When _what_ happened?” Trevor knew that pressing for answers could be unwise; Toshiko didn’t like it and could react badly – but he also felt that this was something she really deeded to get off her chest.

She scowled at him. “Ianto was here the last time we had to deal with an Arcateenian. When I made a complete fool of myself. Happy now?”

“I see…” 

Trevor knew about the event in question, of course. He’d studied the reports from the time on since Captain Harkness took over the Cardiff branch, and especially from the time Jonesy had worked here. So yes, he knew about Toshiko’s doomed affair with the murderous female alien (although, according to the Archives, _all_ Arcateerians were female, at least those allowed to leave their homeworld). And while he understood her embarrassment, he found it a little exaggerated.

“Hey,” he said encouragingly, “it wasn’t your fault. She fooled everyone, remember?”

“Yeah, but I was the one stupid enough to be seduced by her,” she replied bitterly. “I was finally ready to move on after Raji; _almost_ ready to admit to myself that Owen wasn’t worth the effort – only to become the puppet of a murderous alien who just wanted her travelling pod back.”

“What made you attracted to her anyway?” Trevor asked. “I didn’t know you were interested in women.”

“I wasn’t; not really,” Toshiko sighed. “It was just… I was fed up with being ignored and ridiculed by the others. Mary, she… she gave me the feeling as if I were something _special_. Something _precious_.”

“You are all that and more,” Trevor said firmly.

“But it was all just a trick, don’t you see?” Toshiko replied with a brittle smile. “She was manipulating me; giving me what I was yearning for and alienating me from the rest of the team, so that I’d play right into her hands. She gave me this pendant, and when I saw what Owen and that slut of his were thinking about me, I was so _angry_! I didn’t want anything to do with them ever again!”

“I think we’re all better off _not_ knowing what other people think about us,” Trevor commented.

“You’re right, that’s the last thing we should know,” Toshiko agreed. “It was embarrassing, humiliating… and frightening on more levels than I’d care to count. And Mary, I mean the Arcateenian in human disguise, exposed me to all that, just because she wanted to get into the Hub; to get her travelling pod back. So you can perhaps understand why I’m not happy to let Ianto fall into the hands of another one. Even if Sarah Jane says they’re usually nice.”

“I can see it,” Trevor said slowly. “But if we want Jonesy to get better, we’ll need all the help we can get.”

“I know,” Toshiko seemed indeed not very happy about it. “I just don’t trust the kind of help Jack’s about to hire.” She shook her head, then she picked up the artefact she’d been checking before and laid it under the scanner again. “Well, according to the molecular breakdown, this potentially alien, complex artefact is, in fact, made out of _wood_.”

Trevor shrugged. “So what? Other planets ought to have trees, too. It could hardly have picked up meson energy here, on Earth – unless it came through the Rift.”

“Or it’s been contaminated by the other artefacts,” Toshiko sighed. “I really need to have words with the retrieval teams. This was sloppy work. Where did it come anyway?”

Trevor cross-checked the code number of the artefact with the database. “Apparently, it was found on an excavation a few months back. One of Andy’s former colleagues brought it in, with the comment that weird stuff is our area of expertise.”

“Doesn’t seem like that at the moment,” Toshiko muttered. “All right, I’ll label it as _unknown_. It isn’t dangerous, so Emma can put it with the other junk we have no idea what to use for. So, what’s next?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack, Sarah Jane, Lloyd, Owen, Martha and Jenny drove over to St. Helen’s with the Torchwood SUV and Sarah Jane’s car, respectively, after the beginning of night shift. Tosh had politely declined to go with them, offering to help with categorising the unlabelled artefacts indstead, and Jack didn’t press.

Neither did he insist on sending her home to rest. He knew she’d only worry about Ianto and relive painful memories if left alone. It was better for her if she had some company – and lots of work to distract her.

Angie – Doctor Angela Connelly, a voluptuous, dark-skinned woman with very short hair and a heart of pure gold under that professional, no-nonsense attitude of hers – was already waiting for them in front of the hospital. She let them park in the private area, usually reserved for the doctors working there, and guided them through little-used corridors on a route where they could get to Ianto’s private room without being spotted. What they were planning to do was better kept under cover.

“Any changes?” Jack asked en route. Angie shook her head.

“No; but it can’t really be expected by such severe trauma, I hope there’s no permanent brain damage. Because if there is, I don’t know what _anyone_ could do for him.”

“You can’t tell for sure?” Jack felt cold dread creeping up his spine. She shook her head again.

“Not with our diagnostic equipment, we cannot. I’ll ask Owen to bring that Bekaran deep-tissue scanner next time; perhaps we can get some answers with the help of _that_.”

“Why haven’t you used it already?” Jack demanded.

“Because we didn’t _dare_ yet,” Angie gave him a sour look. She didn’t like her work being criticized by amateurs who had no clue about the intricacies of the human body and the possible dangers of meddling with it the wrong way. “Stick to your alien gizmos, Captain and let the health of _people_ be our problem. We, at least, know _what_ we are doing,” she pushed the door of Ianto’s room open. “Here we are. Go on in; and you don’t need to whisper. It isn’t so as if you could wake him up by accident. Unfortunately.”

They filed into the room hesitantly, fearing the sight that would be offered to them – but were surprised. Ianto, who was lying on the bed, hooked up to all sorts of monitors, saline drips and only the doctors among them knew what, appeared amazingly peaceful. Much more so than at the times when he’d been on the telepathic leash of the _eraser_. He also seemed incredibly young, now that the ever-present frown lines on his brow had been smoothened out. He looked as if he’d been sleeping.

Tom Milligan, looking like a man who hadn’t slept for days, rose from his chair at Ianto’s bedside and offered it to Jack, who took it with a thankful nod.

“Is it time?” he asked. Jack nodded again.

“Let’s give it a try,” he looked at Sarah Jane. “Can you summon your friend now?”

“She contacted me yesterday, telling me that she’d found the healer we needed and is only waiting for my signal,” Sarah Jane answered. “We’ll need a safe place where they can land, though. Those travelling pods can’t go through solid walls.”

“They can land on the flat roof, right above our head,” Angie offered, “And then come down the fire ladder directly into this room,” seeing their surprise, she shrugged. “Standard evacuation procedure: coma patients need to be somewhere where they can be easily taken to safety, in case of an emergency.”

Sarah Jane rummaged in her handbag and fished out a small, oval object. “All right, then. I’ve got the summoner. Show me the way.”

Angie was already on the move, and Sarah Jane hurried after her. Jack looked at Jenny.

“Go with them… just in case. Are you armed?”

Jenny patted something under her jacket. “Jamolean lance, Captain. Works on practically all life forms.” 

And off she was, hot on the two older women’s heels.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
She caught up with them easily enough, just as they’d reached the roof. There Sarah Jane let her hand glide over the surface of her small tool a few times, until it began to glow in a pale blue light. Then she held it out in her cupped palm – and waited.

“How long until they get here?” Jenny asked.

“Not very long,” Sarah Jane answered. “They’re in orbit already; have done most of the journey yesterday and the day before. Now all they need is to get through Earth’s atmosphere safely.”

They waited with growing impatience. Finally, about fifteen minutes later, some kind of spark appeared on the night sky – something like a falling star. It came down quickly, grew in size and lowered itself onto the roof, hovering for a moment before it would sit up on the concrete floor.

It was the strangest space faring object Jenny had ever seen, and considering all the strange things she’d already seen in her short life, _that_ was saying a lot. Roughly egg-shaped and half as tall as she was, it consisted of lightly bent pieces of solid metal, with some unknown kind of force field sealing the empty places between the metallic “ribs”. No matter from which direction one looked at it, it appeared exactly the same from all sides.

“What now?” Jenny asked. Sarah Jane shrugged.

“Patience, child. They have to adjust to our environmental conditions. It will take but a moment, though.”

And indeed, less than a minute later, the shimmering of the force field suddenly ceased. What was left was a seemingly empty construction of bent metal ribs – and from between those ribs something like pale blue water was spilling. It pooled at the underside of the travelling pod, separated into two individual puddles, and then coalesced into the ethereal shapes of two incredible creatures.

They were a good head shorter than Jenny (and she wasn’t particularly tall to begin with), slim and very fragile-looking, which probably came from the fact that their bodies were translucent and semi-liquid. They didn’t seem to have a bone structure at all, which was odd, given their very long and slender fingers that looked decidedly bony. Their internal structure, consisting of softly pulsing organs in various pale colours, could faintly be seen through their bluish skin – or rather the thin membrane that served as their skin.

A great mass of gossamer-fine tendrils covered their heads, flowing down all the way their narrow backs. As they were standing there, they swayed lightly, like sea grass in an underwater storm. They had vaguely humanoid, almost doll-like faces, in which only the huge, luminous eyes seemed finished, and they stared at the humans with hypnotic intensity.

Sarah Jane was the first to break the spell. Tucking the device back into her handbag, she stepped forward and held out both hands, with upturned palms. One of the aliens moved towards her – it was a peculiar form of locomotion, as if the creature had been blown closer by a gentle, invisible wind – and those long, knotted, twig-like fingers wrapped themselves around Sarah Jane’s palm and wrists. 

Obviously, this created a deeper connection, too, because Sarah Jane was smiling in genuine delight.

“It’s good to see you, too,” she said. “Now, is this the one who might help us?”

The aliens bowed with such a boneless grace that no being with an actual endoskeleton could have copied. Jenny was reminded of the graceful creatures living on the bottom of the ocean of that water planet she’d once visited; but _these_ were intelligent, space-faring beings, no longer bound to a specific planet or a specific environment...

They were simply _amazing_.

Again, Sarah Jane was the one to break the spell. “We should be moving,” she said. “Even at night, somebody could spot us here on the roof.”

 _Lead the way_ , someone replied, and Jenny realized with a jolt that she didn’t actually _hear_ that answer with her ears; it rather echoed in her mind. Judging by Angie’s startled expression, she’d hear it, too. It didn’t only work on telepaths, then, Interesting.

“What about the pod?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we take it with us?”

 _We must_ , the mental echo answered. _We cannot afford to lose it. We would be trapped on this planet._

“Take it, please,” Sarah Jane said. “It’s not heavy; I held one of those in my hands once.”

Jenny picked up the pod. It was surprisingly light for its size indeed; she wondered what kind of metal it was made and what kind of technology made it tic.

 _We don’t know_ , the mental voice answered. _You should ask one of our engineers_.

“Stop ghosting around in my head!” Jenny groused.

 _We are not_ , they answered. _You broadcast very loudly. You shall need training; to learn how to keep your thoughts to yourself._

“Yea, and in a night with a blue moon pigs might even fly,” Jenny muttered, quite perplexed by her answer and wondering where _that_ had come from. She didn’t even know what pigs looked like. Could it have been part of her father’s personal memories? 

That was a thought for further investigation. Right now, she was eager to watch the alien healer at work.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Ianto Jones was in peace. His ever-active mind finally at rest, his body hooked up to various machines that kept it alive – well, mostly alive – and he was finally done with _doing_. He was just _being_ now, and it was wonderful.

The previous days had been bad, really bad. His brain had felt on fire, while thoughts he could not understand whirled around in it, interspersed with vivid images of violent deaths. Deaths that _he_ had caused. Images of broken bodies – young girls _he_ had murdered with his bare hands, choking the life out of them. 

He’d fought the _wrongness_ of those memories until he couldn’t fight anymore. When the flames had ceased to lick around his brain, he gladly succumbed to the following darkness.

At least in the darkness there were no memories. It felt like floating in blessedly cool water. Everything was so distant and detached, and he liked the feeling. It was… restful, and he had been so terribly exhausted for so long. It felt good to be able to rest… to just _be_.

Sometimes he heard voices, faint and far-away, and he knew he should know them. They sounded worried, anxious even – some tiny part of him that still cared knew that those voices belonged to his friends who were worried for him.

How silly of them! He wanted to laugh at them, to tell them that there was no reason to worry, that he was feeling better than he’d ever been in his life; that they should be happy for him. But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t open his eyes, he couldn’t even twitch a finger of his hand that was lying limply in a much larger, warmer one. Jack’s hand.

That saddened Ianto a little. He could feel Jack’s anxiety, his fear for him, the desperate effort to reach him. It was a little strange; they’d never connected on that level before – in fact, he hadn’t even known Jack could do something like that. But again, people would probably develop new abilities by the fifty-first century, due to natural evolution and possibly genetic manipulations.

Plus, one shouldn’t forget about Time Agent training. Who knew what Jack had been– would be – taught during his time with the Agency?

In any case, Ianto wanted to reach Jack, to tell him that he was fine… but it didn’t seem possible. He couldn’t even send him the tiniest sign.

 _No, you cannot_ , a mental voice said in his head. _Not from here. You must come out of hiding first._

He felt a gentle yet irresistible pull – and panicked. He didn’t _want_ to leave here, to lose this calmness and peace. He didn’t want to return to all the noise, the suffering, the loneliness that had filled his life outside. To the _deaths_.

 _You must_ , the voice insisted, and the pull intensified. _You cannot stay here, or you shall die. Your mind is breaking down, and I can only help you if you are awake._

Ianto was still resisting, not wanting to give up his newfound peace, this wondrous place where he finally no longer _hurt_ – but then, unexpectedly, he could feel the sudden presence of Jack in his head, warm, agitated and desperate.

_Please, Ianto, don’t leave us… don’t leave me! I need you! I never understood before how much. Please, come back to me!_

Jack wouldn’t say the words, not even from mind to mind, but there was no need for that. Not really. In the ultimate intimacy of mind contact, his feelings lay bare and unprotected before Ianto: worry, loneliness, longing, passion, desire… and _love_. Something Ianto had always been wondering about.

Now he had his answer. If he went back to his life, that life would be changed, forever.

He still wasn’t sure he wanted to go back. Life was painful and, for everyone but Jack working for Torchwood, potentially short, with a violent end. But at least now he wouldn’t have to wonder about Jack and Gwen. Not after having seen the truth.

And Jack deserved not to be so utterly alone. At least not while Ianto could remain on his side, no matter how short that would be. He was lonely enough as it was.

With a last, reluctant look at his wondrously peaceful mindscape, Ianto gave a mental sigh and allowed to be pulled out of it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“He’s coming back!” Owen yelled, trying to hold down Ianto who’d begun trashing on the bed violently. “Milligan, help me! It ain’t looking good!”

Tom was already preparing the shot emergency doctors used in such cases, but his hand suddenly stopped in mid-air and he gave Owen a concerned look.

“I don’t know, Harper. Should we dare to sedate him when he’s just waked up from a coma?”

 _No chemicals_ , came the warning from the alien healer, who had practically formed a puddle of herself around Ianto’s head. A puddle with a doll-like face and long, knotted fingers that seemed to penetrate Ianto’s skull, although, at second sight, they didn’t; not really. _The balance of his mind is delicate. Keep him immobilized and let me do what I can._

The human doctors didn’t seem happy with that solution, but they didn’t really have any other choice, either. So Tom and Owen, with Jack’s help, tried to hold Ianto down, until his trashing gradually calmed and he eased into restless sleep.

The Arcateenian healer uncurled herself and straightened with the fluid grace of a striking cobra. It was an unsettling sight, to say the least. Even if they knew that she was harmless and only wanted to help.

 _This was just the beginning_ , she told them. _I shall have to return into his mind at least one more time, to sort out the memories. Some of them seem false, but I shall not be able to delete them completely. He has already internised them._

“But you _can_ make him aware of their falseness, can’t you?” Martha asked.

The healer did that swaying-in-the-wind thing again, this time clearly as a gesture of agreement.

_I can try. But there is physical damage to the brain, too, which I cannot heal. His neural pathways are breaking down, and I don’t know how to repair them. I am a mind-healer, not a neurosurgeon. Although, by such extensive damage, I am not certain that even a neurosurgeon could help._

“What does it mean in plain English?” Owen demanded. “Are you telling me that his brain will continue to degenerate, until he becomes a slobbering idiot or what?”

 _Basically, yes_ , the doll-face of the alien remained unchanged, but her luminous eyes clearly expressed regret. _I am truly sorry. Perhaps sending him back to his peace would be more merciful. There, at least, he was happy._

“No!” Jack replied hoarsely. “I’m not giving up just yet. _Think_ , Owen! You work best under pressure. What can we do?”

Owen wracked his brain for a solution. “Well, obviously, we need a way to restore his brain to the condition it was before the _eraser_ started messing with it. Unfortunately, the human brain doesn’t have a Reset button, and its regenerative abilities are limited. Unless…”

He suddenly looked at Jack. Their eyes met in a moment of crystal clear understanding, and they exclaimed in unison:

“ _Nanogenes_!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“But how are we gonna get them here quickly enough?” Owen asked. “Where do you keep the little buggers anyway?”

“In the safe in my… in the office.” Technically, it was Ianto’s office now, but – by mutual agreement – everyone ignored that fact. Even though Jack no longer lived in the little bunker below it.

“Then you should go and fetch them,” Owen said, “before Teaboy’s brain degenerates beyond help.”

“No need for that,” Jack flipped out his phone. “Tosh can do it. She’s the third one with the authorization to open the safe.”

"Yeah, but she won’t be so happy to meet our new bestest buddies here,” Owen reminded him. “There was a reason why she wanted to stay behind, remember?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Jack speed-dialled Tosh’s number. “She will come when Ianto’s life and sanity are at stake.”

His prediction proved true when, less than half an hour later, Tosh indeed arrived with the ominous little stasis tube holding the nanogenes. Which only reminded Jack that he’d forgotten something crucially important.

“We’ll need one of Ianto’s brain scans,” he said. “The nanogenes need a template, based on which they work. We don’t want them to reconfigure Ianto’s brain to match that of the average Joe from the time of the London Blitz.”

“Why would they do that?” Tom asked with a frown.

“Because that’s how they _work_ ,” Jack snapped impatiently. “They find damage, they tap into their database and repair the damage according to what they find there. Now, these guys have data about the physical landscape of twenty-first century humans in general, but no specifics about the brain; especially not Ianto’s brain, which if far from the average. So, where on Earth could we get our hands on some old brain scans?”

Tosh shot him a wounded look, in the manner of a woman whose intelligence had been unjustly challenged.

“Really, Jack, just how stupid do you think I am? _Of course_ have I brought all Ianto’s medical files with me; including the very detailed brain scans they made at Headquarters while he still worked for Torchwood London.”

“They scanned his brain?” Jack was honestly surprised. “What for?”

Tosh rolled her eyes. “Jack, he’s got an eidetic memory. He was hired _because_ of it; because that was what Headquarters _needed_ for their Archivists. You didn’t really think they wouldn’t have documented those extraordinary brains serving as their ultimate safety net?”

“I’m sure they did,” Jack said. “But I’m fairly sure those files weren’t easily accessible. Knowing Ianto and his obsession with safety, he most likely had them protected by multiple firewalls and a double password-lock.”

“A triple one, actually,” Tosh replied. “Lucky for him that I know all the passwords, isn’t it?”

“You broke _Ianto’s_ protection?” Jack was duly impressed.

Tosh shrugged. “No; he told me them, just in case something like this would happen.”

“He gave you his passwords?” Jack was ridiculously hurt by that. “But he didn’t give them _me_?”

“You weren’t available at the time,” Tosh said simply. “It happened shortly after you’d left with the Doctor.”

“But why the hell didn’t give he the passwords _me_ , the stupid git?” Owen demanded angrily. “This is medical information; _confidential_ medical information. It should have been accessible for me; I was our only medic at that time.”

“Perhaps; but Ianto needed somebody he could actually _trust_ , and you weren’t high on his very short list of trustworthy persons back then,” Tosh snapped. “Now, shall we keep arguing about whys and wherefores until it’s too late or shall we try to use the nanogenes to help Ianto?”

“She’s right, you know,” Martha interfered quietly before either of the two men could answer. “Stop your bitchfest, for this one time, and see that we heal Ianto – if we can.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jack always loved watching the nanogenes in action. Loved as the tiny machines swarmed around a damaged human body like a cloud of sunlit dust particles, entered it and then left it again, after they’d repaired the damage, dutifully returning to their stasis tube. They were like small sparks, tamed to his hand. Like a healing spell from some fairy tale taking physical form.

Of course, not _all_ of them would leave the healed body again. Quite a few of them had to remain behind, bind with the organism, become an integral part of it, so that the repairs would hold.

That was why he used them so sparingly. Twenty-first century Earth didn’t have the technology needed to produce more of them, and they didn’t multiplicate on their own.

By simple physical wounds, only a few of them were required to remain behind. By the neural damage of Ianto’s brain, Jack wondered if any of them would return. Damaged nerves didn’t regenerate on their own. Ianto would have to depend on the little robots for the rest of his life.

But at least he’d be able to lead a normal life, with all his wits about him, instead of vegetating like a mindless husk for the rest of it somewhere like _Providence Park_. Or, if things came to the worst, on Flat Holm.

“I wonder if there’ll be any of them left once they’re finished,” Jack murmured to Jenny, the only person with at least theoretical knowledge about Chulan technology.

“How long does it take for them to heal somebody?” Jenny asked.

“They repair physical injuries in seconds to in a few minutes,” Jack explained. “When that Nostrovite gutted one of Rhys’ friends a few months ago, they worked on the guy for roughly half an hour, but they had to regrow half his internal organs. With neural damage – I just don’t know. I hope they can do something at least.”

“If they can’t repair the damaged neural pathways, they can still stimulate the brain to bypass them and develop new ones,” Martha said. “Sometimes the human brain does this on its own. It all depends on the extent of the damage.”

“In that case, though, he’ll have some difficulties to adjust later,” Owen added,

Jack became deathly pale, hearing that. “You mean he’ll never be his old self again?” 

“Oh, I think he’ll get back there, eventually,” Owen replied with a shrug. “But he might need extensive physiotherapy as well. This won’t be a quick and easy recovery, just so that you don’t expect any miracles.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** More wacky medical science here - and some really disturbing mental pictures ahead. 
> 
> My take on the Arcateenians is a feeble effort to fill the holes canon left behind, failing to explain how one of them could appear in human form.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 15**

When Ianto woke up the next time, he had a spitting headache and felt extremely nauseous. Opening his eyes seemed a gargantuan effort, and when he finally succeeded, the light stabbed right into his head like a hot needle. He groaned and closed his eyes again.

 _Be careful_ , the mental voice from before warned. _You are suffering the aftereffects of severe neurosurgery. Just be patient. The pain and nausea will past. All that is needed is time._

“Neuro… surgery?” Ianto tried to understand, but it wasn’t easy.

“Nanogenes,” Jack’s voice answered. “We used up nearly our entire supply to heal you,” his face swam into Ianto’s field of view. “How are you feeling, Ianto?”

“Like run over by a truck,” Ianto croaked. “But it beats being dead. What happened?”

“The alien, the one who was after Jenny, got into your head and made you believe you’ve killed all those girls,” Jack summarized in the simplest possible manner. “The telepathic attack… it caused severe brain damage. Your neural pathways were breaking down. When we finally killed the alien, you fell promptly in coma.”

“I was in _coma_?” Ianto remembered the wonderful state of peace with longing. _That_ was supposed to be a coma? “How did you wake me up?”

He actually wanted to ask _why_ , but that wouldn’t have been fair towards Jack.

“We had some help,” Jack gestured towards a pale, bluish shimmering figure at his right.

Ianto recognized the species, of course, and tensed up immediately. “That is…”

Jack laid a soothing hand upon his shoulder. “An Arcateenian, yes. Don’t worry; she’s a healer. The Butterfly People aren’t so different from us, after all. Most of them are quite decent. But they’ve got their fair share of insane criminals, too. Just like us.”

 _We regret that one of our own hurt your friend so much_ , the mental voice of the alien echoed in Ianto’s head. _We came to your help to repay our debt._

“Not that I’m ungrateful, but it’s Tosh you should apologise to,” Ianto said.

The creature swayed gently in agreement. _We tried. She was not… receptive. But perhaps she will, in time. The one you call Sarah Jane Smith can summon us when she is ready._

Ianto doubted that it would ever happen, but at the moment he had other concerns. His own health, for starters, which still seemed far from fully returned.

“So, does his mean I have dozens of microscopic robots swarming around in my head?”

“Hundreds, most likely,” Jack corrected, and Ianto pulled a face.

“That explains the monster headache I’m having, I reckon.”

“They’re still working on repairing the damage you’ve suffered,” Jack explained. “Growing new neural pathways and integrating them fully in the complexity of the neural network takes time, especially seeing how many are needed in your case. But it _will_ work out in the end, I promise.”

“Voice of experience speaking here, Harkness?” Owen asked.

Jack nodded. “I’ve gone through something similar once. Back when they wiped two years from my memory. I don’t know what went wrong – mind-wiping is considered a safe procedure in the fifty-first century – but I took considerable damage.”

“And they gave you… nanogenes?” Ianto asked.

Jack nodded again. “Yes. That’s why I know it will work out. It will take time, though. Time and a great deal of adjustment. But you’re strong. You’ll manage.”

“I’m fed up with always being the strong one,” Ianto muttered crossly. “Just once, I’d like to be the one who gets coddled, you know?”

He sounded so young, so disarmingly honest that Jack couldn’t withstand the urge to kiss him within an inch of his life. Not that Ianto would resist. 

They both ignored the exaggerated gagging noises coming from Owen’s direction.

“So, what’s the next step?” Ianto asked, getting over his brief moment of childishness. He was back in his full Torchwood Director persona – or ninja butler persona as Jack liked to call it – nausea and headache firmly exiled into a distant corner of his consciousness.

“You’ll need rest,” Jack replied. “ _And_ therapy.

Ianto’s face became an emotionless mask; like a shuttered window, actually.

“No way,” he said with a finality that would make most people back off.

Unfortunately for him, Jack Harkness was not _most people_.

“That’s not your decision,” he said coldly. “You’ll need physio, because the slow integration of the new neural pathways will make you clumsy for quite some time. Believe me; stumbling over your own feet is _not_ the fun slapstick comedies would like to make us believe.”

“Perhaps not,” Ianto allowed grudgingly.

“And you’ll need professional help to deal with the false memories the _eraser_ planned in your mind,” Jack continued.

“What for?” Ianto shrugged. “I know they’re false.”

“Yes, but you’re likely to have nightmares,” Owen pointed out. “Violent ones.”

Ianto smiled humourlessly. “Been there, done that, still have the insomnia. Are they gonna be worse than the ones about Canary Wharf? Or the ones about Lisa as homicidal Cyberman? Or the ones about the Breckon Beacons?” he glanced at Jack meaningfully. “Or he ones about you, lying dead in the morgue after Abaddon and Gwen not letting me sit with you?”

“Yes, I believe they will be worse,” Jack said quietly. “You really did believe that you were a murderer, Ianto; a serial killer on the hunt for Jenny. And _that_ ’s what you need help with: the identity crisis.”

“Because I might discover that I liked the feeling?” Ianto asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

“No,” Jack replied seriously. “Because it might break you.”

“I don’t break so easily,” Ianto said dismissively. “I’d be residing in _Providence Park_ already if I did.”

“Newsflash, Teaboy: _everyone_ has a breaking point, even you,” Owen intervened “You’ve seen me at my worst, and I reckon that was ugly enough. But I’ve never been half as self-destructive as you are on a good day. So, come down from your fucking ivory tower and let us help you.”

“You’re _not_ sending me to _Providence Park_ and that’s final,” Ianto declared in a cold, menacing voice. “This is not the Starship _Enterprise_ where the chief medical officer can outrank the captain, so back off, or so God help me, I’ll have you fired and Retconned back to your diapers – both of you!”

Jack and Owen were shocked by Ianto’s vicious outbreak. After all, they only tried to help. Apparently, Ianto interpreted it as unwanted interference.

Fortunately for them, the Arcateenian decided to intervene.

 _Your friends are right, young one_ , she ‘said’. _You shall need help. I have healed your mind and the nanogenes have healed your brain physically, but there is a great deal of scarring, and those scars, both the visible and the invisible ones, will need to be tended to for quite some time yet. Unless you wish to suffer a relapse_.

“I don’t care,” Ianto said through gritted teeth. “It’s enough that one member of my family ended up in _Providence Park_ , never to leave it again. Besides, there’s no power on Earth that could make me stay under the same roof as Gwen-bloody-Cooper. Or outside Earth, for that matter.”

“You don’t have to _stay_ there,” Owen said with forced patience. “According to Doctor Fox you can go there for your therapy sessions twice or thrice a week as an outpatient.”

Ianto rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the persistent headache. “With all due respect to the good Doctor Fox, she wasn’t such a great help after Canary Wharf, either.”

“Yeah, cos you were already hiding your cyber-girlfriend and blocked everyone from helping, so that they wouldn’t find you out,” Owen returned nastily.

“Which is another trauma you haven’t dealt with properly,” Jack said hurriedly, before Ianto could have worked himself up to a proper rant. “Please, Ianto, give it a try. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for _me_. You can’t go on like this forever; and I don’t want to lose you. Not to your own demons.”

 _That_ took the wind out of Ianto’s sails for a moment. Without the brief telepathic connection while in coma he might have doubted the sincerity of Jack’s words – but not any longer. He knew now that losing him would hurt Jack deeply, and he didn’t want Jack to be hurt. Not if he could help it.

Sooner or later Jack would lose him anyway – and, Torchwood being what it was, _sooner_ seemed more likely – but if he was honest to himself, which he tried to do, he wanted to stay with Jack as long as he could. He wanted to try out where this… _thing_ between them could go.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll do it… for _you_. But I reserve the right to change my mind if I have the feeling that it’s not helping. Deal?”

He held out a cold, alarmingly trembling hand. Jack took it, warming it between his larger ones.

“Deal. Now, why aren’t we telling the others the good news?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Tosh had returned to the Hub right after Ianto had woke up. Trevor had wanted to stay and celebrate Ianto’s recovery – partial though it might be – and in all honesty, Tosh hadn’t wanted to endure the presence of the Arcateenians longer than absolutely necessary. She couldn’t help her instinctive repulsion, and the fact that they could read her thoughts without breaking a sweat didn’t help with that.

The memories of ‘Mary’, how easily she used her own weaknesses – her grief over Raji’s brutal death, her longing for her little son (well beyond her reach), her loneliness at Torchwood Three, her unrequited feelings to Owen – against her, still burned Tosh. She’d been vulnerable, and that… that _monster_ had played her like a well-tuned instrument.

She’d never felt so humiliated, so betrayed in her entire life. Not even in the UNIT prison, where she’d been reduced to a mere number, to a non-person. _That_ had been something she’d deserved; she _had_ committed treason, after all, regardless for what reason. But she hadn’t done anything to deserve ‘Mary’s cruelty. And the thought that she’d slept with… with _something_ that had been practically a dead body possessed by an alien could still make her sick.

She’d researched the Arcateenians in the meantime thoroughly. It hadn’t been a difficult task; they were a fairly well-known species and Torchwood had tons of files about them. The most recent ones contained Raji’s latest research, and that had nearly broken her heart. 

And thus she’d learned that – contrary to common belief – Arcateenians were _not_ shape shifters. They could, however, occupy a human body, entering it in their semi-liquid form through any given body opening and wearing it like armour. The human thus possessed would die, of course, and their internal organs would be replaced by the Arcateenians own body.

The alien couldn’t produce the enzymes and proteins to keep up its human disguise, though, and so it had to kill people and absorb the respective organs again and again. Just as ‘Mary’ had done for centuries, according to Owen’s research. They were a long-living species, which meant lots of dead people.

And now two such aliens were here, on Earth, invited by _Torchwood_ , so that they would help Ianto. A healer and a star poet, apparently – whatever a star poet was supposed to be. Sarah Jane said that her friend was trustworthy, but what if she’d been fooled, like Tosh had?

They’d said ‘Mary’ had been an insane criminal, but who could be sure that _they_ weren’t the same? They were mind-readers, they could have made Sarah Jane believe anything they suggested her. They could make _everyone_ believe.

Jack might have been able to shut them out – he could resist ‘Mary’s mind-probing, after all – but he was so concerned about Ianto he’d do almost everything to save him. What if they’d made a mistake of judgement? With the knowledge the Arcateenians had no doubt gathered from the others by now, they could probably take over the Hub with minimal effort.

Tosh considered putting the Hub under lockdown as a preventive measure – then she rejected the idea. For the time being anyway.

She literally jumped in her chair when the blaring of the alarm shattered the silence in the Hub. She glanced up in time to see the cog door roll aside. The first thing that caught her eye was a beautifully arranged bouquet of – _cherry flowers_? Where could one _possibly_ find cherry flowers in _Cardiff_? It was followed by the familiar bald head of Trevor, half-hidden behind the fragile branches.

Trevor sauntered down the steps, balancing the large bouquet with impressive skill and handed it her with a flourish. “Here, these are for you!”

“What for?” Tosh couldn’t withstand the urge to bury her face in the bouquet. It had been _years_ since she’d last seen cherry flowers, let aside touch them.

“To cheer you up,” Trevor replied simply. “You looked like someone in serious need for a little cheering up.”

“But _cherry flowers_!” Tosh still couldn’t believe it. “Where did you get cherry flowers? In _Cardiff_ , of all places!”

Trevor laughed. “You know, for a computer genius you have surprisingly little use for the things in your daily life. Such things can be _ordered_ nowadays, you know, and have them flown in directly from Japan.”

“They must have cost you a fortune,” Tosh said, almost scoldingly. _Almost_. She was too touched to be really angry. Nobody had _ever_ brought her flowers; especially not to cheer her up.

Trevor shrugged. “And who else do I have to spend my money on?”

“You certainly shouldn’t spend it on _me_ ,” Tosh replied, more sternly now. “We’ve talked about this…”

“No,” Trevor interrupted. “ _You’ve_ talked about this, and _you’ve_ decided that it was completely inappropriate, because of your former relationship with Dr. Singh. You never asked what _I think_ about it.”

Tosh blinked in surprise. “I _know_ what you think.”

“No, you don’t,” Trevor interrupted again. “I respected your decision and shut up, and you thought you’d convinced me.”

“I haven’t?” Tosh asked in surprise. Trevor shook his head.

“No, you haven’t. Dr. Singh’s been dead for years, and I knew him well enough to know that he’d want you to go on with your life. To find somebody who’d realize how amazing you are and who’d cherish you as you deserve. Well, unlike that ungrateful twat Owen, _I do_. I’ve had… _feelings_ for you ever since we started working together; I _ached_ for you. But I didn’t want to press. I wanted to give you all the time you needed; wanted to wait till you’d be ready.”

“What made you change your mind?” Tosh wondered.

She _had known_ of Trevor’s interest, of course. But she’d hoped it would be just a crush he’d get over eventually.

“The shit that happened to Jonesy,” Trevor replied with brutal honesty. “This is _Torchwood_ , Toshiko; I don’t have to remind you that we could die a sudden, unexpected and possibly very grisly death any given day. For a while, I managed to ignore it – we always had too much work for idle speculations – but there are always reminders. _Anything_ could happen, to either of us, tonight or in the next morning, and then it would be too late. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life pondering over ‘what if’s. Do you?”

“Not really,” Tosh answered after a lengthy pause. “But I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”

“So what if it’s a wrong one?” Trevor asked with a shrug. “We won’t know until we gave it a chance. Let’s seize the day and find out, shall we?”

“And if it doesn’t work?” Tosh asked. Trevor shrugged again.

“Then it doesn’t work; so what? We’re both adults, we can admit an honest mistake and get over it.”

“It’s still inappropriate,” Tosh said. “Technically, I’m still your boss.”

Trevor laughed. “Oh, c’mon on! If there’d ever been a non-fraternization rule at Torchwood, Jonesy and Captain Irresistible had long since shot it out of the window,” he paused, becoming serious again. “Please, Toshiko, do give us a chance.”

“A chance,” Tosh said after another lengthy pause. “That’s all I can promise you.”

“That’s all I ask,” Trevor, practical-minded as he was, found some thick glass jar of unknown purpose to put the flowers in water. “So… dinner tomorrow? My treat.”

Tosh shook her head. “Can’t do. Still have Jenny with me, remember?”

“She’s a big girl; I’m sure she can be left alone for an evening,” Trevor said. “Or we can ask Sarah Jane to baby-sit. The two get along fabulously, and Sarah Jane isn’t going back to London before the day after tomorrow, as far as I know.”

Tosh considered the possibilities for a moment; the fact that they worked on different shifts made logistics a little complicated.

“All right,” she then said. “Dinner it is.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Two days later Sarah Jane Smith returned to London – but not alone. She took Jenny with her, to introduce her to Luke and Mr. Smith, her sentient super-computer. Trevor and Andy followed them with Mickey’s truck to collect the necessary spare parts for Jenny’s little ship from one of the Torchwood One warehouses.

Originally Tosh had been supposed to go with them, but with Ianto still unable to work full time, many of his duties had fallen to her; particularly when it came to security coding and to the updating of the virtual database. Ianto, who’d kept his promise and was currently undergoing physiotherapy, was not happy with the solution, but he couldn’t do anything about it – not yet.

He was determined to do something, though, and that soon.

“We can’t go on like this much longer,” he said on the fourth day of his slow recovery; Trevor still hadn’t returned from London, and work was threatening to swallow them. “I can’t properly concentrate without coffee, and the bloody doctors won’t let me have any. Tosh can’t neglect her research forever, just to do most of my work while I’m being mostly useless. We must hire more scientific personnel. It’s been on my to-do-list for a while, but as things are now, there’s no way to get around it,”

“Yeah, but where can we found somebody with he necessary credentials who’d be willing to work for us?” Jack asked doubtfully. “Everyone good enough to work for Torchwood is likely to work for UNIT already.”

“It depends on your definition of _good enough_ ,” Ianto said mysteriously.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got a candidate?”

“Actually, it was Doctor Fox’s suggestion,” Ianto admitted. “I’d never thought of her myself. I thought she was too damaged for the job – but then aren’t we all?”

“Who is _she_?” Tosh inquired, deliberately ignoring the hint about all of them being damaged. It was tragically true, after all.

“Jeannie McKay,” Ianto replied promptly.

“I thought she was in _Providence Park_ ,” Tosh said in surprise.

Ianto nodded. “She is. She’s got severe psychic problems, but her brain is still as active and as brilliant as ever, and Doctor Fox thinks it would do her a wealth of good to actually occupy it. She needs a challenge; something to give her existence _meaning_ ,” he glanced at Jack briefly. “It worked for me; and believe me, I was pretty damaged myself when I stalked you into giving me a job.”

“Yeah, but you were still able to lead a life on your own,” Jack pointed out. “ _She_ isn’t; not if she has to live in a psychiatric institute.”

“Not yet anyway,” Ianto allowed. “But she won’t _have_ to live on her own. Doctor Fox said she’d be kept as a resident of _Providence Park_ ; we’d merely have to send someone to fetch her in the morning and bring her back after work.”

“But surely she must have therapy sessions,” Tosh frowned. “How is she supposed to work here if she has to go back for that in time?”

Ianto shrugged and waited for a moment to bring the spasming of his hand under control.

“The same way I do. Obviously, we can’t hire her full-time. Not until she gets better; much better. But even a part-time job would be therapeutic for her… and extremely helpful for us.”

“And _you_ ’d have the satisfaction of having found a place for another one of your drifting buddies from Torchwood One,” Jack said; but, unlike in other times, there was no venom in his voice. He’d gone a long way to understand what he liked to call Ianto’s helper syndrome.

“Yes,” Ianto tried to stare him down but the involuntary fluttering of the lid of his left eye ruined the effort. “Do you have a problem with that? Cos I really don’t care if you do, just so that we understand each other.”

A year ago Jack would definitely have had a problem with having another one of Yvonne Hartmann’s leftovers working for him. But during that year – even if one didn’t count The Year That Never Was – a great many things had changed at Torchwood Cardiff.

For starters, Jeannie McKay, whoever she really was (for Jack had never bothered to find out more than the basic facts about the Torchwood One survivors) wouldn’t work for _him_. She’d work for _Ianto_. Ianto was the Torchwood Director now, and in theory he could hire whomever he wanted, without asking him – _or_ Tosh.

That he asked nonetheless was mere courtesy towards them. Ianto had always had excellent manners.

Besides, Jack would do just about everything to make Ianto happy. This was a fairly recent realization; one that, frankly, scared the shit out of him. He hadn’t felt like this for someone since… since he’d landed in nineteenth-century Cardiff, actually.

Well, save for the Doctor, but that was a different kind of devotion. A misplaced one, Ianto would probably say, but in any case utterly different. He’d wanted to meet the Doctor’s expectations; desperately and mostly in vain. But he _needed_ Ianto like he needed air to breathe.

Due to his unique situation, he _could_ survive the lack of air. It would kill him, sure, but he’d bounce back, as usual. He’d survive the loss of Ianto the same way; except that part of him would die with Ianto, inevitably. Compared with _that_ tolerating another one from Torchwood London would cost relatively little effort, if that was what Ianto wanted.

“In the end, it’s your choice,” he said with a falsely indifferent shrug, knowing all too well that Ianto would see through his act. “If you think she’s up to the job…”

Ianto gave him a look of fond exasperation. That special look that usually meant _Yeah, sure, Jack, I love you too_. Then he turned to Tosh.

“I’ll leave it to you and Trevor to work out her schedule with Doctor Fox,” he said.

Tosh nodded, greatly relieved by the perspective of soon having the broken yet absolutely brilliant Dr. McKay as a co-worker and rose to make an appointment.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Afternoon shift,” Dr. Fox said without hesitation on the next day when they sat together to discuss the possibilities. “She needs supervision during the night – because of the nightmares – and therapy sessions in the morning to deal with the aftermath. But in the afternoon she’s usually in a fairly good shape, for several hours a day.”

“What if she suffers a relapse, though?” Tosh asked in concern.

“I’ll give Tom detailed instructions,” Dr. Fox promised. “He’s used to extreme situations, and with a little practice you’ll all learn to watch out for the signs.”

“What signs?” Owen asked; as Tom was still working with Lloyd on what little was left of the eraser – the actual creature, not its armour – he’d been chosen to accompany Torchwood Three’s leading triumvirate to this meeting.

“Signs for a panic attack,” Dr. Fox explained. “Jeannie is prone to those; which is not surprising by someone who’s survived Canary Wharf. She also has depressive phases, but we can keep those under control with medication,” she rattled down the names of half a dozen drugs that said nothing to Tosh and Jack but Owen nodded in understanding – and so did, to everyone’s surprise, Ianto.

You are familiar with psychopharmaceutical agents, Mr Jones?” Dr. Fox asked, her pale eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Ianto nodded again. “My Mam had some of those prescribed,” he said in a flat, emotionless voice. “She spent the last four years of her life here, in _Providence Park_ ,” he shot Dr. Fox a sharp glance. “I thought you’d studied the medical history of my family.”

“I intend to,” she replied, completely unfazed by his slight hostility. “ _After_ you’ve finished physio. You may still change your mind about therapy, and in that case I don’t want to have any knowledge that isn’t my business.”

Ianto blinked, looking at the doctor with newfound respect. The kind of respect paid her person rather than her profession.

“I think the committee made the right decision offering you the job,” was all he said. “This place needs a head psychiatrist like you.”

“I don’t actually _have_ the job yet,” she reminded him, smiling.

Ianto smiled back at her. “Mere formalities. I’m sure Mr Grainger from the City Hall will be happy to support you. I understand that he’s a prominent member of the committee.”

Dr. Fox gave him an amused look. “Are you telling me that you’ve got the head of the City Council in your pocket?”

“Nothing so obvious,” Ianto returned with his best bland receptionist face. “But I used to go to school with his personal assistant. That’s much better.


	16. Chapter 16

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 16 – EPILOGUE**

Jeannie McKay was getting more excited and nervous by the minute. Today was going to be her first day at Torchwood Three, and while she was happy to go to work again, she couldn’t deny having a healthy amount of fear of what might be waiting for her.

She knew there would be familiar faces, which was good. Everyone at Torchwood London had known Ianto Jones and his magic coffee – at least every scientist, that is – and he’d regularly visited her ever since she’d ended up in _Providence Park_. In fact, she strongly suspected Ianto having pulled a few strings to put her in such a good care, although she couldn’t prove it.

Trevor Howard, formerly from Cybernetics, was an old acquaintance, too, working with poor Rajesh Singh at the end, when that Void Ship appeared through the spatio-temporal anomaly above Torchwood Tower. They hadn’t exactly been friends, but they had a good professional understanding; and Trevor had visited her, too, whenever he could. And Toshiko Sato, whom Jeannie had met at various scientific workshops sometimes, was simply amazing.

But Captain Harkness had a notorious reputation; and even though he no longer was the leader of Torchwood Three, Jeannie got a little anxious whenever she thought about the man. Men like Jack Harkness, the ones who blazed through every place like they owned it, had always intimidated her.

Sure, Ianto had promised to tell him to cut back on the flirting and the innuendo, but Jeannie had her doubts about the effectivity of _that_. Even if Ianto was, surprisingly enough, the director of the Torchwood Institute now.

Surprisingly, not because she would doubt that Ianto could run what was still there of Torchwood. Archivists were notoriously good at logistics and organisation; it more or less came with the job. But she’d never have expected him to apply for such a visible leading position. He’d always worked behind the scenes best. That was what Archivists generally _did_ ; why they had always been so valuable for the Institute.

On the other hand, it was hard to say no when Her Majesty the Queen _requested_ something. Especially if the alternative was being Retconned back to one’s diapers.

Jeannie sighed and glanced at her wrist watch. Seven more minutes. She wanted to get the first encounter with her new colleagues behind her as soon as possible. First encounters were always awkward, and her currently low self-esteem complicated things even more. Knowing Ianto as she did, however, she could be sure that he’d be on time. Punctual to the second. Even if she’d want him to be early, just this one time. 

And indeed, at the same moment as the clock hand reached the number 12, there was a knock on her door. It opened without waiting for her answer and in came Ianto Jones, in a sharp suit and an aubergine shirt, his tie in a perfect Windsor knot and his dress shoes so high-polished she could see her reflection on them. Only the fact that he was leaning on a cane ruined the image of that perfection a little.

“Ready?” he asked with a smile.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Jeannie admitted. “Ianto, I’m not sure I can do this – being among people again.”

“Nonsense,” Ianto replied sternly. “You won’t be crowded. The Hub is huge, the team is small, you’ll have your own lab, and you already know the people you’ll be working directly.” He limped over to her and offered his free arm. “Let’s go before you get cold feet and try to back off. That won’t do.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jeannie smiled nervously but took the proffered arm, and they slowly made their way to the parking area of the hospital. There stood a large black SUV, with the word TORCHWOOD painted all over it; with letters so large they were probably visible from the planetary orbit.

“You certainly know how to hide in plain sight,” Jeannie commented sarcastically. Ianto shrugged.

“I assure you, it wasn’t _my_ idea. My predecessor had a hang to a theatrical entry. When I took over, people had already gotten so used to seeing the Torchwood SUV that removing the name wouldn’t have helped. When I need to go somewhere unnoticed I simply take my own car.”

“Your predecessor – that was Captain Harkness, wasn’t it?” Jeannie asked.

Ianto nodded. “He still behaves as if he were the boss most of the time,” he said with an indulgent smile, “but pay his antics no head. That’s who he is, larger than life; but he’d never harm someone of his own.”

Jeannie gave him a doubtful glance. “Yeah, but am I one of his own?”

“You’re one of the team now, therefore you are,” Ianto knocked on the side of the SUV with his cane. “Mickey, do you mind…?”

A young black guy in casual clothes got out on the driver’s side and opened the car doors for them. Jeannie wondered why _that_ would be necessary… until she saw Ianto’s knee gave in unexpectedly. The driver caught him with practiced ease and practically lifted him onto the back seat. Then he turned to Jeannie to help her into the car as well, and she saw his face for the first time.

A shockingly familiar face. One that brought back memories of Canary Wharf.

“Samuel?” she asked in surprise.

What was Rajesh Singh’s assistant doing here? Neither Ianto nor Trevor had ever mentioned him.

“Actually, the name’s Mickey,” the young man replied apologetically. “Mickey Smith. I was… erm… infiltrating Torchwood One at the time. It’s a long story, Doctor McKay, but I’ll tell you later if you wanna hear it.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jeannie wasn’t really sure that she wanted to hear any stories that could be connected to Canary Wharf, so she let the topic drop. She got into the SUV, next to Ianto, and Samuel or Mickey or whatever his true name was drove them across Cardiff to the Millennium Centre – slightly faster than she’d be comfortable with. Ianto noticed her slightly panicked expression and smiled.

“Believe me, he’s holding back now,” he said. “Next time I’ll send Andy; unfortunately, today he wasn’t available.”

Nonetheless, they reached Roald Dahl Plass without causing an accident. Mickey parked the SUV, helped them out and left to take the car to the garage.

“We’ll take the lift; it’s faster that way,” Ianto said. “You aren’t afraid of heights, are you?”

Jeannie shook her head, a little bewildered when Ianto instructed her to stand close to him on a particular slab of pavement stone and to hold onto him tightly. The reason for that became clear when the stone began to sink with them slowly. She shrieked in surprise, holding to Ianto’s suit jacket with both hands, but even so, she noticed that the passers-by of the Plass were going after their business as if nothing had happened.

“They can’t see us,” Ianto said; then he added as an afterthought. “Perception filter.”

“I see,” Jeannie knew what a perception filter was, although she could have sworn that not even Torchwood would be able to actually _create_ one. Not even with all that alien technology at their disposal. “But how did it get here?”

“The Doctor parked his TARDIS on that very spot a couple of years ago,” Ianto explained. “Jack says that its dimensionally transcendental chameleon-circuit placed welded its perception properties to the Rift… which is directly under us.”

“Useful,” Jeannie commented as they were slowly descending into the large open area that was Torchwood There’s underground base. 

She tilted her head back to look up and up to the ceiling that was getting higher and higher above them by the second. It was arched, made of rough stone, giving way to smooth brickwork as they sank further down, and then to metal, of which the handrails, walkways and the grated flooring were made.

All of this was very different from the clean lines, chrome surfaces and up-to-date labs of Torchwood One; very Victorian. As if it had been built using part of an underground railway line. Or of an old sever, if the faint musky smell lingering over the place was any indication. It wasn’t too unpleasant, though; and the water running smoothly down a massive tower in the middle was an unusual touch.

There were obvious sings of the twenty-first century, too. Like the continuous hum of hidden machinery, for starters, or the beeping of the computers in the open work areas – computers that seemed advanced beyond even what she was used to from Headquarters. The individual workplaces in the open area of the upper level were separated by glassed surfaces, and bundled lengths of cables ran up to them alongside the metal stars. The whole base had a definite Batcave look, Jeannie decided, but she refrained from saying it loud. The others may have taken offence.

Ianto led her to the middle of the main Hub area, where the team had already gathered to welcome their new co-worker. It was indeed a fairly small team, with several familiar faces, and Jeannie released a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. There weren’t many of them, and they seemed friendly enough. Perhaps Ianto had been right. Perhaps she could really do this.

“All right, let’s do the introductions,” Ianto said. “As you all know, this is Doctor Jeannie McKay, formerly of Torchwood One. She’ll work with Tosh and Trevor in the afternoon shift. Jeannie, you already know the two, of course; and also Mickey, it seems. Jack, Owen and PC Andy are on a retrieval mission at the moment; you’ll get the chance to meet them later.”

Jeannie secretly hoped that the mission will take time. Lots of time. She didn’t feel up to the challenge to face Jack Harkness just yet.

“This,” Ianto gestured at a tall blonde woman in a white lab coat, “is Doctor Sara Lloyd, formerly of the SOCO lab; she’s our biochemistry expert and runs our alien DNA lab. Doctor Tom Milligan,” that was the proverbial ‘tall, dark and handsome’ man in his early thirties standing next to Lloyd, “is our second medic. Rhys Williams is our logistic expert and general go-to-guy; whatever you may need, ask him. His wife, Emma, is my personal assistant and helps me in the Archives.”

Rhys was a big, good-natured teddy bear of a man who could make one feel safe by his mere presence. Emma looked like a proper little wife from one of those ridiculous 1950s films, including vintage clothing, but there was a sharp intelligence in her pretty eyes, belying the guileless expression of her smooth, doll-like face.

“You’ll meet our Rift technician, Sally Jacobs, when she comes in for the night shift, as she’s usually early,” Ianto continued; then he gestured at a willowy black woman with a gentle face. “And this is Beth Halloran. She runs the cover shop, gets us caffeinated and helps a little with the paperwork and the filing. So, that would be everyone, I think.”

“And what about me?” somebody asked a little accusingly. It was a young blonde girl with a ponytail, wearing jeans and a red tank top under her black leather jacket.

“Oh, sorry,” Ianto leaned heavily on his cane and seemed rather dizzy for a moment. “Jenny Smith, our freelance tech expert. She’ll help you in the lab, Jeannie. Now, if you’ll excuse me… I think I need to sit down for a moment.”

Jeannie watched, wide-eyed, as Samuel… Mickey… whoever helped Ianto to the couch in the middle of the main Hub area and Ianto all but collapsed on it.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked Jenny in concern.

The girl pulled a face, looking vaguely guilty for some reason. “Neural damage due to an alien attack. He’s recovering, but it’s a slow process. Now, come with me, I’ll show you the lab.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Like most labs, the one assigned to Jeannie was on one of the lower levels, but the air was clean and dry in there and the equipment impressive. She recognized a few instruments as having belonged to Torchwood One – they still bore the symbol and the code numbers – but some of them were tools she’d never seen before.

“This lab has been specifically equipped to examine the energy sources of various pieces of machinery that had fallen through the Rift during the last two hundred years,” Jenny explained. “There’s a huge backlog of such things, as the Torchwood Three team has always been a small one and there was usually something more urgent to do. Ianto wants the uncategorized old founds checked, to see if there’s any use of helping them. If not, they’ll be melted and recycled.”

“Recycling alien tech?” Jeannie laughed in shocked disbelief. “Yvonne would get a fit, could she hear that.”

Jenny shrugged. “Well, a lot of it’s just junk, so why clutter the base with it? I’ve started sorting them out a few days ago, but it’s like a drop in the ocean. You’ve got yourself a lifelong job here, I’m afraid.”

Jeannie hoped that it wouldn’t be so. That in time, she’d get well enough to do actual research again. But until then, it was alien tech, and it was work that she could actually do, and for that, she was grateful. Plus, Jenny seemed a nice and competent girl to work with.

She looked around in the lab – _her_ lab – with something akin to pride. It wasn’t much, but it was all hers; and it was a step in the right direction. Further steps would hopefully come; one day she might even become close enough to her former self to work full-time again.

As she was admiring her new workplace strange item caught her eye on one of the working tables. It looked like a coral – a fairly large chunk of it – and it seemed to _glow_ from within with a faint golden light.

“What’s _that_?” she asked.

Jenny followed the direction of her look and frowned.

“That’s a piece of coral from the planet Gallifrey, or so Jack said; a gift from him. But... I can be wrong, but it seems to me that it was just a tad smaller when I brought it down here… and it definitely didn’t _glow_.”

She flipped out a small, hand-held scanner and approached the coral with it. The scanner beeped frantically. Jenny studied the readouts with narrowed eyes – then realization hit. Jeannie could almost literally hear the pennies dropping in rapid succession. Then the girl pocketed the scanner again, pulled out a Bluetooth device and put it in her ear.

“Jack,” she said, touching the earpiece to activate it. “Yeah, it’s me. Listen, Jack, the TARDIS coral you gave me… it’s _awake_!”

~The End~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last instalment of Episode #3. The “Sleeping Dragons” series will be continued in Episode #4: Atonement.


End file.
